Making a campaign video is a dicey process. First, there’s the inevitable low production value, and then there’s the tendency for candidates to fall victim to attention-grabbing gimmicks and questionable musical numbers. But nothing quite compares to the embarrassment of the dreaded spoof video, and unfortunately for Vermont Senate hopeful Daniel Freilich, no one filled him in on that.

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As a powerful whack in the beating of the dead horse that is the Old Spice homage genre, Freilich tried to emulate the Old Spice guy in a parody campaign ad – according to the description for the video on YouTube, it was his attempt to show off his “fun side.” There’s just one problem: no one can pull off a performance as good as Isaiah Mustafa‘s original, especially not when they do it in front of green screen-ed images of quaint Vermont landscapes.

To his credit, Freilich admits that he hasn’t spent any special interest money on his campaign, which explains the poor quality of the video. But that’s

about as far as he gets into why he’d make a good senator. For the rest of the video he pretty much just panders to his Vermonter demographic, chugging a tin can of maple syrup (had to fact check that one, because it looks like a tin can of motor oil), and riding a cow – people from Vermont do that, right?

Let this be a lesson to all future Senate/Presidential/Homecoming Queen candidates who want to make a campaign video: keep it simple, make your point, and if you want to spice things up, just look into the camera and say “Barack Obama is the worst president in history” completely stone-faced.

Watch it below. And by the way, that cow he rides? Actually a man in a cow suit.

Tags: campaign ads, video, YouTube