In case yesterday’s Beck interview wasn’t proof that Petersonmania has been loosed upon the land, consider this the clincher. I’m hoping against hope that new and even more over-the-top ads are on the way, but that’s unlikely, isn’t it? He already made his mega-splash with the first one, and since he’s running for ag commissioner, his budget’s probably thin. Why spend precious campaign dollars on new spots that’ll achieve little except … entertaining millions of fun-starved political junkies?

Speaking of fun-starved, the guy who wrote the original ad has an interesting Breitbart-ian view of what’s wrong with conservatism today:

Ehlinger himself is a rare breed: a conservative-minded filmmaker. Or, more accurately, a libertarian one. He blames the scarcity of his kind on the conservative movement, who conceded the tug-of-war over pop culture decades ago. “To their utter loss,” he adds with a scoff.

“I sincerely believe the reason why conservatives lost in such a dramatic way to Obama,” Ehlinger explains, “and why they lost the congressional elections with Mark Foley, is because they pretty much gave up on art.”…

Nevertheless, Ehlinger insists he’s not out to change the world with his film work or his radio show, but rather to raise the bar on political conversation.

“I would like to see a higher caliber of discussion than what you get from talk radio,” he says. “Limbaugh and Hannity and all these guys—Hannity, especially, is not a deep thinker. I admire them for what they’ve achieved, but I’d like to see libertarianism be better represented.”

He’s out to “raise the bar” with ads showing a guy on a horse in a cowboy hat brandishing a Winchester? Whatever works, I guess. Content warning.