The “Klingon Translator” ad I mentioned a while ago has long been gone, aired a handful of times and faded away. It was never the main point Ted Wheeler wanted to make, and there’s only so much mileage you can make out of an entirely miniscule issue. Dianne Linn has enough baggage elsewhere.

The staple ad of the Ted Wheeler campaign, for radio at least, is of a positive resume quality. Likewise, he pulls a certain trick out of the Job Interview Guidelines, which is you answer the question “What would people say are your negative qualities?” by answering with as innocouous, back-handed item that could dovetail back into “strength.”

So, the ad begins.

“The Willamette Week describes Ted Wheeler as ‘a brainy wonkish man with liberal tendencies. Sounds kind of like a geek to me, but let’s take a closer look.”

“Geek”. Uh huh. What, are we electing a Prom King here? Since the thrust of the ad throws you back to Ted Wheeler being at any number of forums “in your neighborhood”, I guess he wants to throw you into the mindset that he is “personable” and “open” — non-geeky attributes.

But, I have a basic assumption that the majority of our elected officials were somewhat geeky in high school (even elite Prepatory Schools), thrown in the thrust of excelling on the Debate Team, for example. Regionally, Earl Blumenauer and his goddamned bow-tie — he lacks a certain social sophistication. Senator Ron Wyden — how’s that discussion about Nano-Technolgoy rate? Our current President may be an exception to that regard, and we’re lesser for it. As for the phrase that prompted the word “Brainy, wonkish with liberal tendencies”:

“Brainy”: Who does Ted Wheeler think he’s kidding? Back to the job interview. “What would your weaknesses are?” “Well, people say I’m ‘brainy’.” That wouldn’t pass the smell test, and anyone who’d go for that would have a lot of gall to try that one.

“Wonkish.” This is a little trickier, as it could be good or bad depending on the scenario. We need a great deal of “wonks” in government, and everybody in government needs to be wonkier than the average Joe. But you can cut the knife at paying too much attention to detail and losing sight of the bigger picture. Ted Wheeler is skating on thin ice by making sure that the public knows he’s “wonky”and passing it off as a weakness. At any rate, I’m not exactly going to complain about anyone who can rattle some minute details on Urban Boundary.

“With liberal tendencies.” Brillaint, Ted Wheeler, just Brillaint. See, our embattled incumbant, Dianne Linn has pointed to some Republican ties Wheeler has had in the past — why! He was even a Republican until 2001!! (Gasp, if you must, it doesn’t really matter to me.) And in Democratic Multnomah County, what is this phrase going to count against you?

Running back to that list, where the announcer checks off an item about Ted Wheeler and tosses out either “geek” or “not geek” (“Geek” prefigured by an adjective as per “Job Creating Geek” and “Compassionate Geek”)…

In the end, it’s just a product of political consultants, par for the course. What Dianne Linn has going for her is simply less money, and thus no ads, and thus that makes her ad campaigns less annoying.

A ringing endorsement for Dianne Linn! Ah well. I appear to be ready to vote for all the embattled bruised incumbants, including Ted Kulongoski who I’ve sometimes been about the only person who believes is doing a fairly good job. A “Throw the Bums Back In” attitude has gripped me. What can you say?

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