Gay Baiting? Or Straight Up Fun?

This ad has been making the rounds and attracting a certain amount of Democratic ire — purportedly for, as Matt puts it, “mainlining homophobia”:

Outstandingly, Matt persists in his excellent defense of fig leaves: this is homophobic mainlining “with no real fig leaf rationale or anything.”

Actually, I find this ad to be hilarious, probably because the three cool kids prominently featured in the ad look like random real people pulled directly off the street in LA. I might have little regard for their partisan positions, but they sure look like more fun to have over at a house party than anyone else I’ve seen lately in a political ad. Frankly, I see almost no effort here to make these Ambiguously Gay Party Teens look any more or less ridiculous than the ambiguously gay party people that I’ve seen and know in real life. Correction: their dancing is a lot worse, but worse in a way that ought to make straight white guys feel an instinctive solidarity — not an instinctive urge to vote Republican.

If Democrats countered with a silly but basically accurate portrayal of NASCAR fans or crosseyed hillbillies, I would expect that ad to be as harmless of a hit as this one should be. Based on the crypto-race-baiting we’ve seen so far against Obama, I hardly think this rises to the level of gay-baiting. Even if the Ambiguous Three were widely interpreted as straight — as they might well be by God-fearing Americans too uncomfortable with homosexuality to take gay social cues at face value — I think it’s basically okay to run ads that boil down to the message: “If you’re not like these people, you’re not likely to support the policies their chosen representative supports. Consider voting accordingly.” Isn’t that fair game, if you keep it as lighthearted (dare I say campy?) as this?

UPDATE: Especially when this is the standard for all-American normalcy: