Things have gotten so bad for the Republicans this year that they can't even think up original smear campaigns anymore.
Apparently the best that GOP ad firm Stevens and Schriefer Group can come up with is recycling the same poorly done, smear campaign for races in Pennsylvania and Alabama.
The firm, which worked on Bush's re-election campaign, has put together ads for Lynn Swann, running for governor of Pennsylvania, and Luther Strange, running for lieutenant governor in Alabama, that use the same overweight, greasy, disco-dancing slickster.
The ads are
supposed to be funny. They aren't.
Several weeks ago, Republican gubernatorial candidate Lynn Swann released a humorous campaign ad called "Decades," produced by Swann's media consultant, Stuart Stevens of the Washington-based firm Stevens and Schriefer, according to the campaign.
The commercial featured an overweight, middle-aged man moving through the 1970s, '80s, '90s and on up to the present - dressed in the styles of those decades and moving to music specific to those times - and poking fun at Gov. Rendell's promises to reform government.
Turns out, someone in Alabama had the exact same idea.
That would be Luther Strange, the Republican candidate in that state for lieutenant governor - and whose campaign is also being advised on media matters by Stevens and Schriefer.
Here is the Lynn Swann ad.
Here is the Luther Strange ad.
Notice how the narrator for the Alabama ad is given a Southern accent.
Maybe the geniuses at Stevens and Schriefer figured no one would notice.
Larry Powell, a communications studies professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said it wasn't uncommon in the past for campaigns to use an ad format that has been successful in another campaign.
However, the "cookie cutter" ads might fall out of favor since the Internet can be used to find commercials for campaigns miles away.
"The Internet has changed the game plan on that," he said.