"Political discourse"
So I give you the laziest excuse for...journalism? Content? Actually, I'm not exactly sure what this is, but it's not exactly a credit to Slate's editorial staff that it's the lead item on the site this weekend. You could click play on the embedded video doodad above and be subjected to a Prius ad or something, or I could just tell you that it's Republican fringe presidential candidate Ron Paul's latest New Hampshire ad, followed by negative comments from the ad's YouTube page allegedly made by Paul supporters. That's all.
Perhaps this feature would be amusing or informative if it had anything particularly revelatory to say about Paul's supporters, who have garnered a bit of a reputation for their general orneriness during the campaign. However, their comments, as excerpted by Slate, basically amount to "this ad sucks." Which it does. It does suck. It's corny, cheesy, and there's no way that I believe that longhaired college students are going to start registering Republican to vote for Paul in the primary because of it. The most that any of the anonymous pro-Paul YouTubers quoted in the piece deviate from that line is to note that Ron is apparently trying to corner the "chubby men with beards" market.
So, congratulations to Slate for basically producing one of the most utterly useless, inane things ever put out on a for-profit website. Perhaps next week we can get a feature on how Obama supporters don't like his yard signs "just because", or how Giuliani backers approve of his "toughness." Coincidently, this zero calorie treat appears precisely one year ('08 is a leap year - mail out those Happy February 29th party invites early!) ahead of The Second Most Important Election of Your Lifetime. So, uh, hooray.
