Aldon Hynes addresses an important question in his response to the so-true-it’s-a-parody Washington Post op-ed by Zephyr Teachout and Tim Wu:

So, what is the underlying message of all the political advertisements that you’ve seen over the past couple weeks? Behind all the negative ads and false information, it seems as if the key message of political ads over this past cycle is “We think you’re stupid”.

And, frequently: Be afraid. (Then, of course, there are the weird Cruz Bustamante ads that touted him for California Insurance Commissioner because he lost weight, the subtext of which seems to have been “I am totally freaking nuts.”)

So, what was the subtext of the Deval PAtrick TV ads? (I hope his campaign keeps them up. And adds important metadata, such as when they ran.) Take the first one and the last one. Both are explicitly about hope. Neither says a single word about policy. All show a confident, likable man in a rush of admirers. The ads say that the election is not about issues. The ads show people how good it feels to place your trust in someone, as if you were a better person for doing so. The last one, shown when Patrick was virtually assured to victory, seems to me to be about governance: Once he’s elected, we have a chance to end the alienation we citizens have felt; the Democratic party has been corrupt with complacency, and has been more for the party functionaries than for us. All of them seem to say: Feel good because you support this candidate.

I’m not saying these are good subtexts, although I prefer trust and hope to “Shut up and cower,” for trust and hope are both requirements for democracy to work. But “Trust me, I’m likable,” and “We’ll assume agreement on the issues,” are not exactly where we want the democratic debate to go. On the other hand, the problem is probably more with campaigning through 30-second spots where there’s only enough time for direct appeals to the lizard portion of the brain or to the heart. [Tags: politics marketing deval_patrick aldon_hynes zephyr_teachout tim_woo ]

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