With Joe Miller's frontrunner status in doubt, the Alaska Republican's campaign is taking notes from that marketer's dream-come-true of a viral video. Yes, he's parodying the "Old Spice Man" ad to "spice" up (eh?) his barbs at incumbent write-in candidate Lisa Murkowski. With a serviceable imitation of the husky, disembodied voice and a dead-on rendering of the "swooshes" in the deodorant ad, the spot takes digs at the candidate who is "not on your ballot." It ends with a chipper variation on that trademark whistle.

Perhaps most importantly, as The Washington Post's Emi Kolawole notes, "no matter where the narrator tells you to look (or how hard you listen) there is a nine-letter word you won't see or hear in this ad: M-U-R-K-O-W-S-K-I."

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Erik Hayden