Like a dose of L-Dopa to politics as usual

Never mind how even festive holiday gourds are now fleeing from our president when a camera is near – few phenomena can cause an otherwise optimistic citizen to all but abandon faith in this nation's entire democratic experiment quite like repeated and prolonged exposure to campaign ads.

Sure, some argue TV ads are a relic of a bygone media era and command little influence in themselves amid all the on-air clutter (though obviously not everyone), but a case can be made that ads have a singular way of reflecting, condensing and driving the broader discourse; paring it down into its most basic, most evocative terms.

And when that discourse descends, quite literally, into sock puppetry, can we really blame citizens for not wanting to show up at the polls (or, for that matter, other nations for not wanting to import and subject themselves to such a state sponsored freakshow, or the leaders it produces)?

Still, every once in a while, an ad manages to convey a relevant message in a fresh, resonant way that the simple appeals to reason or routine recitations of ideology preceding it have not. Take the ads Michael J. Fox has filmed for pro stem-cell research Democratic Senate candidates Claire McCaskill in Missouri and Ben Cardin in Maryland, and for Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle.

I think the left is finally onto something here – if fear's not your mobilization device of choice, go for the guilt. And what could possibly be more visceral than an ad featuring a young, beloved actor (and what is an actor but a nonrepresentative, less corrupt variation of a politician?) beset by a debilitating, bad-roll-of-the-genetic-dice disease? An ad that only the likes of Rush Limbaugh will criticize publicly, further reinforcing the message? An ad basically saying, "sure, go ahead, vote for Talent/Steele/Green – save a clump of cells and their potential life, but you might as well be MURDERING MICHAEL J. FOX, you heartless ass."

And it's even better when you don't have to engage in petty distortion and outright obfuscation to achieve that effect – and that, if anything, is what's so unnerving and chatter-worthy about these ads: short of trotting out a precious, pigtailed toddler and trying to argue it was saved from the stem-cell scrap heap and given a chance to gestate, how do opponents possibly respond? No matter how shiny, a petri dish simply can't hold a candle to the continued animation of Alex P. Keaten.


And because I just can't hold them back any longer from an audience beyond the select few who already know just how horrible a person I am, here's a sampling of tasteless Michael J. Fox headlines respectable news outlets, to the detriment of us all, almost certainly will not touch:

• Michael J. Fox shakes up the campaign

• Democrats hoping Fox's mobilizing power more reliable than his motor neurons

• Voters hear stem-cell message from, struggle awkwardly not to stare at Michael J. Fox

• Dust off the Steadycam!

• Michael J. Fox turns on the turnout charm -- and with luck, decades of research and your generous support, his dopamine receptors