I’m a political junkie, but even I avoid campaign ads at all costs. In fact, I usually don’t bother to look at them until it’s time for the Pollie Awards. But because I heard that O’Donnell’s latest ad is based on the most viral of viral videos (the Antoine Dodson clip), I was suckered into watching.

Sure the Antoine Dodson reference is genius…although I’m not sure if the people who would vote for O’Donnell would know who Dodson is or, even more importantly, find the raw video of his commentary outside his apartment building in Alabama charming.

But it doesn’t matter, the O’Donnell ad is gold without the Dodson allusions. The soundtrack is classic slasher film genre quality. The knife and prison door sound effects, the foot steps…it all works. The video is also seems to be shot in HD (or at least HQ) and starkly black and white. It feels super modern and relevant. Even the voice of the narrator isn’t the normal “Unsolved Mysteries” schtick that barely scares anyone anymore.

Typically there are two types of campaign ads: personal appeals–where the candidate and/or constituents speak directly into the camera with text-based information at the end. Or, the Contrast ad where a mixture of unflattering clips and text are used to draw differences between the candidates.

Both types of ads are overdone. O’Donnell’s ad is a modern “Daisy” ad–though obviously not as alarmist, she’s talking about taxes not nuclear weapons–still this a deviation from the status quo that portrays her opponent as inherently dangerous in some way. It works and ought to get her taken a tad more seriously.  She needs a good ad if she’s going to rise up from 38% in the pols. Still, she’s opened the door to producing different types of ads this campaign season. I hope other candidates walk through it.

Who knew the witchy woman from Delaware would give us the best gem so far of this (already-too-long) campaign season.