The Most Relaxing Election Ad of the Year

We heard it said several times during the storm that the thin silver lining to Hurricane Sandy's wrath was that her power outages would provide us with an escape from the glut of election news and, worst of all, the election advertisements. Thus do we have perhaps the most clever ad of the season from Richard Tisei, running for Congress in the Massachusetts 6th District against Rep. John Tierney.

Tisei figures he can bring us relief from both the ads and the blustery weather by buying up 30 seconds of footage of a beach in Gloucester with seagulls calling and a caption reading, “Because you need a break from all the election ads.” Sure Tisei's campaign and outside Republican groups supporting him are as much responsible for our ad fatigue as anyone else. But it's still a funny gag, and a welcome relief. Some, like Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham see the fact that Tisei is using his air time and cash for something other than attacks as a sign that he's feeling pretty good about his lead in the polls. Call it what you will: clever, viral, kind, but it's definitely not selfless, exactly. (And that's fine. It's a campaign ad, after all.) It's just more subtly self-serving than your typical ad. First, it's the kind of spot that is noteworthy enough that it gets free viewings on television news (and websites…) without him having to spend as much money to actually air it. And second, any ad that makes viewers thankful you exist is not entirely devoid of personal benefit to your candidate.