The time of the season

In less than a month, voters will be going to the polls for the Pennsylvania primary, and the pre-vote TV ads are showing up full force. A few observations about some of the early offerings:

– Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato, who is running for governor, has an ad in which he talks about growing up in a home that is shown on the screen. Later he says that he still lives in the same neighborhood, a few miles away. Now, is it just me, or is that the biggest neighborhood known to man? I'm thinking that if you have to drive several miles away, you're NOT in the same neighborhood.

– Does anyone know what party Mark Critz belongs to? It's really hard to tell based on the advertisements being run by the former Murtha aide who is running for the late, legendary congressman’s old seat. The answer to my original question: Critz is a Democrat. He just doesn't seem to be very proud of it.

– Finally, has anybody seen the hatchet-job advertisement Sen. Arlen Specter has rolled out to target his Democratic primary opponent, Congressman Joe Sestak? No touchy-feely stuff from Arlen. He's going straight to the brass knuckles. The Specter ad starts by attacking Sestak’s military record, then goes on to chastise him for missing a lot of votes in the House. Here's the deal. To have any chance at unseating a guy like Specter, who has been in the Senate since the Iron Age and has a big old campaign war chest, a challenger has to spend countless hours raising money and actually campaigning. The big-money politics of our time demands it. If any challenger in Sestak's position played by Specter's rules, he would have little or no chance of unseating an incumbent. Oh, yeah, I get it now.

What a laugh

I find most television commercials to be either boring or stupid, or both. But I've always gotten a few laughs from the E*Trade ads featuring the talking babies. Actress Lindsay Lohan doesn’t share my opinion. She’s suing E*Trade for $100 million because of the company’s latest ad, which features one baby girl referring to another as “that milkaholic Lindsay.” Lohan, who has a history of substance abuse, claims the character in the ad, who pops onto the screen at the end of the commercial and says “Milk-a-what?," is clearly based on her, and that her right to privacy has been violated. It seems ridiculous to me that someone like Lohan, whose party girl behavior has landed her on tabloid magazine covers and those parasitic syndicated TV shows about the entertainment industry, can claim any right to privacy. But it gets funnier. Lohan alleges in her suit that the character in the ad had to be named after her because she has the same “single-name” public recognition as Oprah and Madonna. Sure, that’s right. Anytime I'm ticking off the world’s biggest female celebrities one might recognize by their first names alone, it's usually Oprah, followed by Madonna and then, of course, Lindsay Lohan. Unless she or one of her family members is getting arrested or going into rehab, does anyone even think of Lindsay Lohan these days? I suppose if you're a fan of the aforementioned TV shows or the trashy tabloids, you might see her every once in a while. But I doubt the average American has given her much of a thought in ages. I mean, for the past five or six years, the woman is more famous for her bouts with substance abuse and photos taken with a camera lens pointed up her skirt or down her blouse than she is for her acting career, such as it is. Does she really want to draw more attention to herself at this point? Never mind. Of course she does.

How much fuzz is too much fuzz?

Some people are easily offended. I'm not one of the them, but I understand that some folks have different sensibilities than I. That said, I think it's a bit much that Lamar Advertising in Colorado Springs, Colo., has rejected proposed bus stop advertising posters for a production of the Tony-winning musical “Avenue Q” because a puppet was showing a bit too much, um, skin. That's right. Excessive puppet cleavage is the given reason why the posters cannot be used. Jeff Moore, a Lamar account executive, says his company takes a conservative approach in politically conservative Colorado Springs, which is home base for some conservative Christian groups, including Jim Dobson’s gay-hating Focus on the Family. I saw “Avenue Q” in Pittsburgh a few years back. It’s a highly entertaining show, but it is definitely not for those who are against swearing, gay people and sex in general. However, it boggles the mind to think that anyone could get the vapors over a puppet wearing a revealing dress. Remind me to cross Colorado Springs off my potential vacation spots.