il prices spiking, cable-bizness anchors doing the heavy-breathing thing, heating oil stocks dreadfully low in the oil-heat Northeast: People, we have a political issue peaking here.
Just in time for the presidential election. We have a villain: his name? Brent Crude. So which party gets to seize the advantage in the oil price runaway? Which presidential candidate taps into the boiling volcano of political emotion unleashed by the oil price ignition? That depends upon the advertising crews at work in both camps. Grasping an emerging hot issue and fashioning it into an awesome political weapon is a job for the gang down at Vulcan Associates Un-Ltd., my mythical ad agency of the moment.
Here's how a sample killer-ad might go, first for the Bush crowd, then the Gore gang:
A Bush commercial opens with video of Vice President Gore embracing an obviously Arab oil sheik, followed by national newspaper headlines using words like ''Oil Shock'' and ''Crude Tops $38 a Barrel.'' Cut to old film of honking motorists lined up outside gas stations during the Carter oil embargo: Announcer: ''Not since OPEC tried to bring America to its knees in the '70s under another Democratic administration have American motorists been hit this hard by foreign oil oligarchs. It's time we elect a president who'll stand up to OPEC and put Americans first.''
Cut to more recent video of Hillary Clinton being bussed by Yasser Arafat's wife, Suha, a subtle link of Gore to the controversial first lady and her embrace of her Palestinian equivalent. Announcer: ''George W. Bush will put America first. Isn't it time we had a president who's more concerned for American consumers than foreign producers?'' The ad ends with headlines of Gore's family interest in Occidental Oil.
The Gore camp's potential rejoinder? Video of cowbody-booted-and-hatted George W. celebrating with his oil-bidness buddies in West Texas. Announcer: ''The Republican candidate for president says he's proud of his background in the oil business. He says what's good for Big Oil is what's good for America. Al Gore disagrees. Al Gore is fighting for working families pinched by the runup in oil prices. Al Gore is taking on Big Oil, and Americans want him to win that battle this fall.''
Cut to video of Bush's running mate, Dick Cheney, in a hard-hat on an oil rig, followed headlines of Cheney's $40 million golden handshake from Halliburton, the oil supply outfit. Announcer: ''Both men on the Republican ticket stand to make money out of the recent run-up in foreign oil prices. But Al Gore stands with working families, against the oil barons.''
Which would work better? You're the judge in the end.
Negative ads are important weapons. They can sap the will of the other side's base and depress turnout by turning off less-motivated and casual voters. If they are too risky, you can always find a sympathetic lobbying outfit to pay for it and run it, letting them take the heat so your guy doesn't get burned in the reaction. The professionals who run campaigns like to control turnout and discourage ''amateurs,'' voters who are only loosely affiliated to party brand, who do not behave within safely predictable demographically secure margins and who represent the dreaded ''wild card'' in the game of anticipating turnout.
John McCain benefit ed mightily from these wild cards, a lot of them Democratic crossovers, in his early primary victories. Now stakes are higher. There's less time for a vulnerable candidacy to recover from a body blow. So both camps screen the news digests each day and flog the in-house pollsters and focus-group conductors to come up with the killer ad.
Sometimes it doesn't have to run more than two or three places to win a place in the Political Advertising Industry Hall of Shame. Lyndon Johnson's famous ''daisy ad'' implying Barry Goldwater would loose nuclear horror upon the little girls of this world was an unnecessary dagger stuck into a barely twitching electoral corpse in the 1964 Democratic landslide.
George Bush the Elder turned loose black rapist/murderer Willie Horton on the campaign of Michael Dukakis in 1988, with a revolving-door from a purported prison showing dark-hued miscreants ready to pillage the countryside if Dukakis got elected.
Negative ads can be generic: the flip-flop, weathervane, trampoline, and diving board-bellyflop offer handy metaphors for the unwary pol who has in his career changed positions on anything with barbed wire attached, like abortion, gun control, tobacco, etc.
They can employ the reverse-testimonial: You drag before your hired video crew a succession of elderly ladies, hard-hatted Joe Sixpack types, or pitiable little kids, who can all attest with apparent sincerity that candidate Joe Blow did them dirt. This year there's been a minor eruption of scorned spouses who take out ads to denounce their former mates and pledge their electoral troth to their opponents, all the while denying that spite played any role in their civic-mindedness.
Negative ads are to be taken with the customary dose of salt. And as with any fried or fatty food, consume too many of them and your political digestion goes awry.
David Nyhan is a Globe columnist.
