A good thing about the Michael J. Fox ad for McCaskill, in addition to its clarity and impact, is its timing. Folks are starting to say the GOP 11th-hour sleazefest is going to backfire on them. Knock on wood. But this sort of thing often works, and their proclivity for last-minute social-issue sleaze is clearly addictive. Whining about this is not enough. We have no reason to be surprised, and we need to continue to have fresh, hard-hitting ads ready to go in the last two weeks of campaigns. The Fox ad is a fine example, and pundits are embarrassing themselves when they juxtapose the GOP's recent efforts on behalf of Allen and Corker with the Fox ad as examples of going negative.

The Fox ad is policy-oriented, accurate (and non-misleading), and palpably sincere. The Republican criticisms of his ad are ridiculous and offensive. Why shouldn't he be able to speak about an issue of undeniable importance to his very life? And should the effects of Parkinson's be hidden from public view? Whose agenda benefits from such concealment, and who is harmed by it? As for the Republican "October surprise" counterparts, the ads in question are vicious and often cynical. But because they often work, they must be countered.

The ideologues who run Washington today are a scrappy bunch will not let go of power easily, nor govern more democratically. So the election is ours to win, by being more strategic, more decent, and more ambitious. These qualities are particularly well fitted to a Democratic agenda. They overlap only partly -- maintaining a high road in advertising can help produce but obviously does not guarantee strategic toughness (which comes, in part, from having October surprises of our own, and of a higher caliber, ready) -- but neither do they contradict one another.