In an attempt to make the unsexy world of political advertising somewhat sexy, The Washington Post's Philip Rucker looks at the ad team Mitt Romney has assembled, a team that predictably calls themselves the "Mad Men." Yes, here comes that old Mad Men meme again. Instead of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, it's something like Minchillo Ferguson Dalthorp O'Connor Van Dusen Salmon. This team has have an arduous task in front of them in the next 10 weeks, as Rucker writes:

The creative team is trying to create an emotional bond between a candidate who reveals little emotion and a still-unsure body politic. And they are trying to tell the story of “the Obama economy” — searching what one of them dubbed “the trail of tears” for powerful voices among the roughly 23 million Americans who are unemployed or underemployed or have stopped looking for work.

And just like SCDP (or more like Ocean's 11, or any cool guy movie where a bunch of these awesome-sounding dudes get together to pull off a major score), each of these guys has a specialty. Here's a brief sampling:

Jim "Fergie" Ferguson brings the beef.

James Dalthorp has the ride.

Vinny Minchillo has the laughs?

Of course the advertising, video editing, and campaign team is a lot bigger than these three "Mad Men" and apparently there's even a bunker equipped with editing suites full of archival footage. It all (almost) makes the next ten weeks of ads sound sexy and exciting which something, no doubt, Don Draper would be proud of.

Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at aabadsantos at theatlantic dot com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.
Alexander Abad-Santos