If someone put a gun to my head and told me to, in no more than a day's worth of work, come up with some campaign ads for some random person I didn't know and who had no particular qualifications for the job, I know what the framework would be. First, you need dramatic music. Then a lot of scenes that show empty patriotism—you know, waving flags, that sort of thing. In the middle of that, just throw in some shots of your candidate looking bold and exceptionally well-lit and saying ... well, who the hell cares, right? As if anyone gave a crap about that!

So here ya go, here's my—sorry, I mean Michele's—new ad, where she promises to never allow the debt ceiling to be raised, because of the children and stuff.

I have to congratulate the candidate here on being exceptionally substanceless, even for a modern Republican, and even for a "Tea Party" Republican. She knows the debt ceiling is now bad, because someone said so, but there's no hint whatsoever that the alternative might also be bad. She doesn't want the children to be in debt, but hey, if all the roads go unpaved, if the U.S. credit market collapses, or if world devolves into some sort of Mad-Max dystopia full of roving gangs of flamboyantly dressed ex-Social Security recipients, that would be fine with her and her kids. (Okay, that last one sounds pretty intriguing to me, too. Now I sorta want to see what that would look like. Movie idea?)

I guess what fascinates me about ads like this is how substanceless assertions, basically just fodder for a Saturday Night Live fake-candidate-commercial, really are the height of the art form. It doesn't matter what you say or how shallow you are, what's important is that it be given a moody, dramatic soundtrack, and that you shove some flags in there. Because that's Democracy™!

I'm going to miss this candidate when she eventually falters. Herman Cain is better at the insane-sounding soundbite, and Mitt Romney is far better at gauging which way the wind is blowing and pointing that random way, whatever it is, but Bachmann manages that special combination of vapid commentary coupled with a sense of deep, underlying anger, like she's always just one minute away from throwing up her hands and just nuking the hell out of everyone else on the planet, if only someone would give her access to that sweet, sweet button.

