The GOP looks to be in trouble, but don't count 'em out quite yet! I mean, the party that can spin a botched joke targeting the president, who is not running, by a politician in the opposing party, who's not running either, and keep the focus on it for a whole week in the crucial last week of the campaign—that's a machine you don't want to mess with. Whatever you may think about the liberal media, or the vast left-wing conspiracy, or whatever, spinwise nobody can touch the party of Rove.

Aside from the Kerry thing, I noted a couple other impressive last-minute moves by the party in the news yesterday:

Attorney General and Torture Tzar Alberto Gonzales announced yesterday that Operation Falcon III, a 24-state sting launched earlier this week, had netted 10,000+ unregistered sex offenders, "documented" gang members, and other unsavory types. Timed perfectly for the midterms, though Gonzales coyly denied any political connection.

If you don't think the party was involved in extending Mark Foley's stay in rehab, I've got some land in the Everglades to sell you. The Foley scandal, which just a couple weeks ago threatened to topple Speaker Dennis Hastert, has disappeared completely—poof! Just like that!--from the public eye, like Foley and Hastert themselves.

But, truth is, midterm elections aren't really all that exciting, and anyone who's going to take the time to vote has pretty much already made up his or her mind, probably. Turn-out is a concern, of course. The GOP has had the advantage in the last several elections of a block of loyal conservative voters who turn out without fail. Democrats seem to have lost the ability to inspire real loyalty, and Democratic and Independent voters leaning Democrat are flakier than core conservatives. So we should probably expect a slightly closer race than the current poll numbers predict.

Which means that even here in Massachusetts, it ain't over till it's over. Fifty percent of registered voters in the state are unenrolled (like me). That means, among other things, that they are possibly easier to sway at the last minute, and/or are less likely to vote in the end.

With this in mind, Healey's stumbling to the finish line with her latest ads: one featuring Rudy Giuliani (one of the only Republicans on the national stage who has across-the-board appeal for his hands-on role on 9/11), and one featuring a kinda hunky jogger with a sorta sexy Southie drawl trying to make up his mind at the last minute about who to vote for:



This could've been The Ad, but Kerry, honey, you blew it. Again. All you had to do here was have your studly jogger show a little skin. Trust me. If you'd stripped this jogger down to a skimpy pair of those old-school running shorts—ones like I wore in track in high school in the mid-eighties—you'd have gotten an instant ten-point bump up in the polls. At least. I guarantee it. I mean, check it out:



SPROING! There it goes! And if you'd included a little product placement in there, too, the ad would've paid for itself, twice over.

But I guess my question is, why use a hunky jogger in your ad at all, if you're not going to exploit those bobbing pecs of his for points in the polls? I mean, it's only practical. Why choose jogging, one of the few things you can do nearly starkers in broad daylight on any suburban street in America, when all sorts of people who aren't going to vote for you at the last minute do all sorts of things no one will let you do half-naked in public at 7:45 on a weekday morning?

If you loved us, Kerry—if you really wanted us to vote for you—you'd throw us a bone every now and again. All these scary ads about sex and violence have backfired. Frankly, here's what we see when we look at you now:


Yes, you say you want to snuggle, but...yee-ikes, woman. Are those things even retractable?

Truthfully, I don't know if you can do anything to change our perception of you at this point. It may be too late. But in these last days of your doomed campaign, try. Just a little. Give us some eye candy. Deval does. I mean, Deval is. That cute little bullet-head of his and that cute, nasally voice. That's what you're up against, Kerry. Even Grace Ross is snugglier than you are.

So in the interest of a fair fight to the finish, here are just a few possibilities for last-minute spots that take your introspective jogger theme, and improve immeasurably on it. Straight to the point, and sexy—that's what voters want! I mean, how about these morning activities?


I think you get my drift, here, Ker. But if none of this feels quite right to you, you may want to consider a last desperate measure. Cut the crap, and show us what you really got, grrrl:



And if all else fails, there's always The Diebold Strategy. The GOP's been stocking up on voting machines. Maybe you should get a few.