Q Toon: I No Longer Approve This Message

Offer void in Louisiana.

Donald Trump, and shadowy Citizens United groups supporting him, advertised heavily on my local TV in October, as did Ron Johnson and Russ Feingold vying for one of Wisconsin's Senate seats. Hillary Clinton didn't invest quite as much on TV ads as Trump did; meanwhile, Paul Ryan was the only congressional candidate I saw advertising on Milwaukee TV (a market covering at least three congressional districts).

Perhaps the only bright spot in the advertising mess was a pro-Feingold ad from the Humane Society Legislative Fund, featuring a handsome German shepherd praising Feingold's voting record in favor of animal protection and conservation measures without claiming that Johnson favors animal cruelty and toxic waste. (The negative stuff is all in the press release you probably didn't read.)

While the candidates' ads were overwhelmingly negative, all but one candidate at least included some positive information about themselves or their agenda in at least one of their commercials. That one candidate with nothing positive to say, I'm very disappointed to report, was Hillary Clinton.

I know, I know: negative ads are more effective than positive ones. They tell us that every election season. But anyone who hasn't been hiding under a rock knows that Donald Trump says horrible things about women and boasts about behaving like a sexist pig. We know he mocks, denigrates and insults Mexicans, Muslims and handicapped reporters. It was all over the news. It was all over the late-night talk and comedy shows. It was all over our Facebook feed.

You know what was not all over the news, late-night shows and social media, Hillary? Any of the uplifting stuff in your stump speeches to the people at your rallies who were already planning to vote for you. Nor were there any policy goals for which you might have wanted to claim a mandate come January.

Trump, vile and offensive as he is, included in some of his advertising promises of making America great again and replacing Obamacare with, well, something swell. On your side, we've got, um, let me think... "I'm with Her." It doesn't exactly invite one to say, "Yeah! That's what I'm looking for!"

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I drew that cartoon on Sunday night and wrote the above on Monday, when I had no idea that all that Hillary Clinton was going to win was the worthless popular vote. The verbiage had been stewing in my head for weeks, but I'd decided against posting it earlier because I don't like all the attention the process of the campaign gets during the campaign at the expense of the issues of the campaign.

Clearly, the Humane Society Legislative Fund's ads were no more help to Russ Feingold than Hillary Clinton's ads were to herself. Health Insurance Profiteers, the FBI Director, Julian Assange and the Kremlin, however, were probably more influential in getting Ron Johnson and Donald Berzilius Trump elected than any commercial.