Let's say that the person you are competing against in the California GOP Senate primary releases a political advertisement that is expensive and deranged, with fake sheep crawling around with lite-brite eyes in a field, and a terrible, malformed metaphor that actually insults the fiscal conservatives whom everyone wants to win over. What do you do? YOU DO NOTHING, DUH. Never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake!
But lucky for Carly Fiorina, who made the awesomely bad "Demon Sheep" ad (and who promises more of them!), her competitors are... how do you say? Oh, yes: terrible.
Take the target of the "Demon Sheep" ad: Tom Campbell. Campbell should have done nothing. NOTHING! Just let people encounter the "Demon Sheep" ad in the wild, and trust that it's overarching insanity is readily apparent to everybody. Because it is! And out there in the wilderness, everyone is reinforcing how dumb the ad is.
Instead, the Campbell campaign sent the ad around to everyone on its email list, a move that ensures the ad is seen by more people but without the filter of smart cultural arbiters, like me, who point out how terrible it is. So by doing so, Campbell actually ends up bringing attention to the substance of the ad's underlying complaint.
Tom Campbell's campaign is terrible! But they do not think so. Check out this Twitter from Campbell campaign consultant, Patrick Ruffini:
Patrick Ruffini doesn't know what he's talking about! And the comparison does not work, on multiple levels too complicated for me to explain. But suffice it to say, the "DemonSheep" ad is not "John Edwards having sex with Rielle Hunter." And furthermore, had Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama obtained the alleged John Edwards sex tape, I can guarantee you their campaigns would not have sent the video to their supporters, in a campaign email. They would have quietly leaked it to Politico, or something.
But we also have to talk about California Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, the terrible Twittering loser who is just the worst! Nobody is making a bigger deal over the "Demon Sheep" ad than DeVore. Oh, Lord, look at what he's done! He went out and got the "www.demonsheep.org" domain name. He's erected a terrible site called "S.F.T.E.O.D.S.F.O.P.D." This stands for "The Society for the Eradication of Demon Sheep From Our Political Discourse." It contains an "All Your Base Are Belong To Us Joke" -- remember how funny we thought that was in like 2002? We spent whole 15-minute periods being amused by that.
Gah. DeVore is the worst. He's not even mentioned in the "Demon Sheep" ad. But he's so keen to horn in on the action that he's going way overboard in complaining about it. Basically, the guy is just revealing himself to be desperate for attention.
Hey, Patrick Ruffini, it's Chuck DeVore you should be baiting into having sex with Rielle Hunter!
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