A political candidate displays his bloody wound.

Is this the way to argue that you should be governor?



We were talking about this ad in the comments to last night's live blog of "Dancing With the Stars," a show I was watching (for the first time) to see how Bristol Palin would be presented. Here in Wisconsin, in between the spangled, befringed, high-heeled prancers, we got an eyeful of Tom Barrett's gaping wound. Irene wrote:

In the Madison market, we were treated to an ad for Tom Barrett's campaign.

He's using the horrific beating he suffered as the theme of the ad.

He has an attractive wife with short hair.

He has a labradoodle.

I said:

I've seen that ad before and think it's quite awful. So he did what a decent person would do and got hit in the face. For that, he should be governor? Aren't there 100 war heroes in Wisconsin with more serious injuries? Why is Barrett ahead of them? And what's with foisting a picture of a bloody wound in our faces over and over? And his wife saying over and over that he is a good guy? Aren't there 100,000 good guys in Wisconsin whose wives will vouch for them on camera? What nonsense!