Zeke Miller gifts the internet with this latest campaign ad treat, from Roland Sledge, a Republican running for Texas Railroad Commissioner, which is apparently something that you run for in Texas. In the ad, Sledge stands by a fence and explains that some people learn by reading, others learn through observation and "the rest have to pee on an electric fence."
Now, spoiler alert, Sledge is not the third kind of person, says Sledge. Nevertheless, having dragged the viewer out to a field with a fence, he has to deliver on the spectacle of someone urinating on it. (This is a variation on that rule of playwriting that the gun you show the audience in Act One must be fired in Act Five.) As you can see, he doesn't disappoint.
In fact, the only problem with this ad is that the viewer is so primed to anticipate the moment where a fence gets peed on that you completely miss the part where Sledge talks about ... Rod Blagojevich, for some reason? Okay, the viewer says, just cut to the peeing.
Political ads do not have a grand tradition of urological metaphors, perhaps disappointing that small sliver of the electorate with "boutique interests." The canonical ad in the genre is, of course, Kansas Democrat Jim Slattery's 2008 ad against Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), which briefly leads the viewer to think that a gaggle of tiny citizens is getting an unwelcome golden shower from some giant executive. It's eventually revealed that they are being doused with gasoline, which is actually a more disturbing idea.
At any rate, I don't know if Texas' railroads particularly benefit from their commissioner's ability to troll the internet, but if they do, then Roland Sledge is clearly the right man for the job.
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