Charlie Crist

2. Nic Cage in trouble with IRS for giving too many gifts: Oh, what, they're going after Santa Claus next? Nic Cage is just a really generous guy, that's all.

3. PETA's latest billboard comparing the Duggar family to animals that need to be spayed: I usually hate PETA's tactics, but if your dog had 19 puppies, you'd definitely get it neutered too. Unless it was making bank off its own very successful TLC show.

4. The Awl's amazing coverage of Chris Canyon, the gay wrestler: Obviously, in the world of oiled-up men with flowing hair rubbing all over each other, heterosexuality must be protected at all costs.

5. Gwyneth Paltrow and Jay-Z  interview one another for their respective lifestyle sites: At first glance, you couldn't find two more different people to talk to each other, until you realize they probably spend most of their time sharing tips on the best European countries to buy castles in.

6. Funny or Die's race with Weird Al to 2,000,000 Twitter followers:

Great job beating a man whose last big hit was "Like a Surgeon." Just kidding, we're all losers here: Weird Al has so many more Twitter followers than us.

7. Tom Hanks is teaming up with Green Day for a film version of "American Idiot": How close is Billy Joe Armstrong to an EGOT now? Is it closer than Tom Hanks? Because that would be depressing.

8. Puppeteer in Australia scares children with lifelike Velociraptor:

I'm sorry, but if I saw that thing bound through my elementary school door, I would sue the state for trauma. After I was done petting it.

9. John Galliano fired from John Galliano label: I didn't know you could be fired from your own clothing company. But then again, I didn't know that an anti-Semitic clown that dresses like Mystery from "The Pick-Up Artist" actually designed for Dior in the first place.

10. David Byrne makes former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist apologize for stealing his song for a campaign ad: Best part? He makes him do it on YouTube.

Wow. That was uncomfortable.

The did-he-or-didn't-he debate over what happened at the Miami concert was revived by Crist's interest in the case. The surviving band members say a drunken Morrison teased the crowd, but never exposed himself.

"It never actually happened. It was mass hypnosis," said Ray Manzarek, The Doors' keyboard player.

Manzarek and guitarist Robby Krieger said Morrison's behavior was influenced by an acting troupe that disrobed during plays.

"He was just doing a mind trip -- as they would say -- a mind trip on the audience and they totally fell for it," Manzarek said.

Manzarek said Morrison was far drunker than usual, to the point where they questioned whether he should go on stage.

Gov. Crist began considering a pardon for Morrison in 2007 at the at the urging of a fan. He says he has doubts about whether Morrison actually exposed himself during the rowdy concert March 1, 1969. Morrison was convicted of public profanity and indecent exposure and sentenced to six months in jail and a $500 fine.

The case has become murkier with the passage of years. Morrison's defense attorney said recently that the singer received a fair trial with credible witnesses on both sides, and fans who were at the show have differing recollections.

Here's what most people agree on: The Doors went on stage late, the Dinner Key Auditorium was oversold and wasn't air conditioned. Morrison was drunk and stopped in the middle of songs with an anti-authority, profanity-riddled rant.

A live lamb was brought on stage at one point, and Morrison also grabbed a police officer's hat and threw it in the crowd. The singer took off his shirt and fiddled with his belt, and fans poured onto the stage.

"There were 100 photos offered in evidence at the trial, photos of everything -- Jim with the lamb, Jim with the hat, on the stage collapsing, riot in the audience. Not one photo of Jim's magnificent member," said Manzarek.

A pardon won't change Morrison's image, but it will right a wrong, Manzarek and Krieger said.

"Jim's legacy is one of Dionysian madness and frenzy and of a chaotic American poet. I don't think that the Miami episode has altered his image one iota," Manzarek said.

Krieger added: "Nobody would like to have that charge hanging over their head even if they are dead. I'm sure his family would be happy to see that go, especially since it never happened."

There are fans who still swear Morrison exposed himself.

"He actually unzipped and pulled his pants down a little bit, enough where you can see everything. I do remember being shocked when that happened, and definitely it happened," said Lee Winer, 56, who now lives north of San Francisco. "I can still picture it like it was yesterday."

Others disagree. Helene Davis of Miami said she was an 18-year-old in the front row of the concert with a friend. She said Morrison teased the crowd by pretending he was going to unzip his pants, but never actually exposed himself.

"We were watching and waiting because it was obvious that's where he was going with it," Davis said. "I just remembered thinking, 'Yes, it's going to happen! It's going happen! It's going to happen!' And it never did."

Polls have steadily shown Marco Rubio, the Tea Party-backed GOP nominee, on course to win a three-way race, with Crist and Meek splitting Democratic and Democratic-friendly independent voters. Meek's departure, obviously, could have changed the dynamic and positioned Crist to edge out Rubio. Presumably, Crist would then caucus with Senate Democrats.

In trying to talk Meek out of the race, Clinton was essentially seeking a repeat of the maneuver he engineered back in 1994, when he helped convince L. Douglas Wilder to end his independent Senate candidacy in Virginia. Wilder, a former Democratic governor who had briefly run against Clinton for the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination, had entered the race because of a bitter personal feud with Democratic Sen. Charles Robb, who was up for reelection.

Wilder's presence was seen as a boost to Oliver North, the polarizing Iran-Contra figure nominated by the Republican Party -- although a fourth candidate, Marshall Coleman, a former Republican state attorney general, was threatening to steal votes from North's GOP base. By mid-October, it was clear that neither Wilder nor Coleman would win, though both were polling at or above 10 percent. North, meanwhile, enjoyed a slight edge over Robb in the polls; the anti-Democratic climate of '94, coupled with Robb's considerable baggage, was powering him. It was in that climate that Clinton leaned on Wilder to drop out and endorse Robb, his old nemesis. Wilder eventually agreed and the president traveled to Virginia to seal the deal at a party dinner, footage from which is available below:

 

In this epically flawed political commercial, Charlie appears on a white background -- what ad folks call "no seam" - with giant letters spelling "Democrats and Republicans" fanning out on each side of him. He promises to put partisanship behind us, and that he will combine "the best ideas of Democrats and Republicans." To make the point, Charlie allows himself to participate in a goofy, and perhaps career-ending gimmick: He rearranges the letters to spell "America." Just like an allergy-relief commercial, where a faux-sincere pitchman merges "No Sneezing" and "No Drowsiness." Check out the ad here (commentary continues below):

And watch the spot carefully. As Crist moves the letters around -- and tosses some away -- he’s not talking on-camera; it’s his voice-over that we hear, a subtle but giant communication mistake that makes him an actor in his own commercial.

It’s a classic example of a poll-driven disaster. Crist’s media mavens had their heads buried in spreadsheets. Yes, I’m sure the “data” shows that people say they want good ideas no matter where they come from. But in this year of anger and confusion, Independents don’t want test-tube fusion, a polite hybrid of Democrats and Republicans. They don’t want a GMO candidate. They want someone strong and gutsy: his own man, not a man who belongs to two parties. That’s twice as bad as one.

And Crist comes across as boring and unconvincing; in his open-neck blue shirt and khakis, he looks like a third-rate CEO at an “ideation session.” No wonder he’s been stuck at 30 percent in the polls since late August.

This new Crist spot is equally disastrous. Call it the dumb metaphor school of advertising.

Perhaps inspired by the final season of “Lost,” Crist walks along a beach holding a stick, which he uses to draw a line in the sand. Why? Because, you guessed it, the “party bosses” in Washington refuse to compromise.

To make the point, Crist reels off good Democratic ideas, “like investing in clean energy.” Then he steps across the line to endorse good Republican ideas, like “Cutting waste so we can hold down taxes.”

Crist is squandering this election. Rather than inspiring people to join his Independent crusade, he’s running as a strange and unappealing kind of political hermaphrodite.

Then there’s Marco Rubio.

Marco Rubio, the Republican nominee, was speaker of the Florida House of Representatives from 2007 through 2008. He has been gradually distancing himself from the Tea Party’s insurrectionary vocabulary -- he didn’t even mention them in his victory speech -- and this innocuous, family-draped spot has none of its clarion intensity. It’s a reassuring confidence-builder that won’t send moderates scurrying.

The spot ends with one of the best closers I’ve seen recently. It’s a canny conflation of anti-Castro sentiment, embrace of immigrants, and a whiff of Tea Party rhetoric: After ticking off the threats to America -- and the risks that his children will be part of the first American generation to “inherit a diminished future” -- Rubio looks into the camera and says, “As the son of exiles, I know what it means to lose your country.”

“I’m Kendrick Meek, the Democrat for Senate, and with three of us running, you should know what makes me different.”

That’s how Meek begins his newest commercial, and it’s easy to see why he’s stuck hard in third. Can there be a worse media strategy than to display your utter lack of confidence by kicking off your spot with an implicit admission nobody knows what you stand for?

The spot follows Meek around the state as he declaims the positions that separate him from his opponents. He argues that he’s the only one who fought against developers draining the Everglades, the only one who’s pro-choice, who’s against offshore drilling and higher credit card fees.

But the high-energy cinematic style of the spot, which someone obviously thought was cool and modern, works against Meek. It’s jumpy. It forces Meek to behave like an actor and read from a script. It gives us no chance to get to know him, to like him, to believe him.

Obviously political consultants are still in thrall to the famous Paul Wellstone spot from 1990; the one where he says he has no money and has to talk fast.

But unlike Meek’s expensive production, this one feels gloriously cheap and real; Wellstone’s authenticity and utter lack of polish come flying through.

For a candidate in a much smaller race, who uses the handmade, quick-cut, garage-edited technique to great effect, check out this video from Bryan Weaver, who’s running for a council position in D.C. (Bryan credits the Wellstone legend, but not by name, saying that, because he lacks the vast resources of his opponent, he’s going to “Steal an idea and speak fast.”)

It was a YouTube phenomenon, as is his second video below.

There’s always a risk when a candidate attempts to crack the familiar mold of most political advertising. In that familiarity lies comfort, and in that comfort lies electability. But at the same time, voters today are both media-savvy and emotionally frustrated, to an unprecedented degree. Imaginative self-presentation is subliminally linked to imaginative solutions, and I believe there’s an opportunity for candidates to use their messaging in a way that promises both.