On Lame GOP Inflation Commercials

To be truly successful, a political commercial either has to tell you something you didn’t already know or raise the intensity of your feelings about something you did. The first item typically involves some hitherto unpublicized fact that can be portrayed as sleazy in your opponent’s background; an example of the latter would be creating a sympathetic portrait of life as an unemployed person for people who have never had that experience.

Inflation doesn’t lend itself to that kind of treatment. It is experienced by everyone every day. You can’t really tell anyone anything about it that they don’t already know. That’s why the GOP commercials attacking Biden’s record on the issue don’t have much of an emotional impact.