This is a negative ad I can deal with, because it's more like a documentary than a 30-second drive-by.

Great, bring it down to 30 seconds and run with it.

This scandal was two years ago, by now McCain has probably totally forgotten it, along with many other things that would be useful for a President to know. Geography for instance.

Bravo!!! Yes, go for it, this is not negative, it is informative. Facts are facts.

Don't you all have enough money to run this ad? After all the negative things said about Obama, this ad tells the truth and needs to be heard!! Over, and over and over again! CNN, CNN, CNN! Here you go CNN! Run this!

Come on, DNC, you can do so much better with the same set of facts and messages. Funny and mocking is what’s effective.

Start with the stand up shot of Abramoff with the pulled down hat. That shot is much more threatening than what you are using. Possibly a cut to Jimmy Cagney as a mobster (“you dirty rat!”). When you mention GOP legislators going to prison, flash bars across their faces with audio of clanking doors.

The golf photo is limp. Try lighting each one up as you say their name, with a zoom to their face and an added glint of smiling teeth. Then a close up of a handshake.

Money laundering? An animated (bobble head?) Reed dumping cash into a front-loading washing machine and Abramoff pulling it out.

As for the Reed photos, aren’t there shots of him thumping a bible, looking as extreme as Jeremiah Wright?

Yes, this gloss is superficial, but it doesn’t distort any of your claims – it just makes them memorable.

Don’t spend my contributions on more BORING ads!

(excuse me if this is double posted)

If more American voters saw the PBS Frontline account of the Abramoff scandal and the players in it, we might see less of those discredited individuals as paid 'analysts' on television and in paid public appearances.

See archived Frontline programs and source material online at the PBS.org website.

See also the McClatchy Washington Bureau series entitled "Guantanamo: Beyond the Law" http://www.mcclatchydc.com/259/story/40334.html