Advertising imitates life

I just saw a car ad on television that describes exactly what is happening to Mitt in this election.

I have already blogged about this, in "The Boat and the Dock." Mitt has one foot on the dock, which is the Republican base, and one foot on the boat, which is the moderate vote. He has to have support from both constituencies to win.

Mitt can't be too true to the base, or the undecided voters will start drifting away. And he can't court the undecided voters too much, or the base will either complain to the media, or the right-wing media will complain in behalf of the base, which nudges the boat farther out.

Either way, Mitt is in constant peril of going into the water. In the last couple of days, the base, knowing its causes are in trouble, has nudged the boat farther out, and here's Mitt, stretched to the breaking point, with nowhere to go.

So I'm sitting here, half an hour ago, watching television, and on the screen comes an ad about car insurance. I have seen it before. The ad talks about the need for insurance when something unusual happens, over which the car owner has no control. In one scene, a neighbor is trimming a tree and a limb falls on your car in a driveway. In another, your parked car is crunched between a truck backing up, and a truck behind.

But this time there was something new: you are driving your car onto a ferry, and there's not room in front. You stop, with your back wheels on the dock, and your front wheels on the ferry.

And then the ferry starts to pull very slowly away from the dock.

That is Mitt's exact position in this election.