On Monday, Alison Lundergan Grimes's Senate campaign began running an ad that criticized Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for, among other things, holding a gun incorrectly.

On Tuesday, McConnell responded by noting that Grimes's skeet shooting, which she does throughout her ad, makes her look a whole lot like a certain president.

Then, on Wednesday, the campaign of GOP Senate candidate Dan Sullivan in Alaska began running an ad in which an X Games gold medalist scoffs at Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) "pretending to ride" a snowmobile. (He calls it a "snow machine." It's an Alaska thing.)

That's right: Two of the most important races in the 2014 Senate campaign are basically about how people hold guns and ride snowmobiles. Welcome to the silly season.

But if you think these ads are just plain crazy, think again. There's a reason why they're doing what they're doing.

1) Visuals are powerful. Everyone wants to create the new Michael Dukakis in a tank or John Kerry windsurfing. More specifically, they want a visual that plays into an existing narrative.

For Grimes, that narrative is that her effort to put guns front and center in her campaign is a transparent attempt to overcompensate for her support for gun control and President Obama.

For McConnell and Begich, it's that they are so of-Washington that they look awkward doing Things Normal People Do with guns and snowmobiles. (The contrast between the X Games athlete doing tricks on his snowmobile and the bookish Begich bouncing around on his snowmobile is no coincidence.)

So, in a way, the ads aren't really about how candidates hold guns and ride snowmobiles; they're about how out of touch they are.

2) It's trying something new. Candidates are trying to get their ads noticed over the hundreds of other ads people will be bombarded with over the next few weeks. What better way than to do a buzzy ad that folks like The Fix will write about (hey, wait a minute . . .) and news stations will air (for free!) during their actual programming.

Consider Priorities USA's Joe Soptic ad in 2012. The spot ran on TV precisely once (by accident), but its message was so talked about that it was probably one of the most-viewed ads of the presidential campaign.

Given the proliferation of the campaign-industrial complex, there's an ever-increasing premium on getting noticed. And especially this late in the midterm campaign, the easiest way to do that is by showing people something they haven't seen.

3) Dumb is okay. People are used to dumb stuff in their politics. It's kind of like negative ads in general. People say they hate such ads, and they probably do, but those ads also have a demonstrated effect on their votes. That's why most ads are negative.

So, yes, it's dumb that we're debating how our U.S. senators hold guns and ride snowmobiles. But it's really just the next logical progression in American politics.

Update 3:34 p.m.: And just like that, Begich's campaign is crying foul over the ad.