Good news, America: Relief is on the way.

No, I am not talking about economic relief. The global financial crisis is an overwhelming topic these days, but the relief I am referring to regards an issue even more important to Americans. That issue, of course, is how much longer we are going to have to put up with these political ads.

The good news is these ads are already beginning to taper for those of us in Wisconsin. The Republican National Committee decided last week to halt spending on independent ads in Wisconsin and instead focus on more winnable states, which was probably a good political strategy considering McCain’s chances of winning Wisconsin are roughly equal to the chances of Paris Hilton winning a Nobel Prize.

But while this is truly great news for Wisconsin, the news is proportionately bad in states such as Indiana, where the RNC will now devote even more to spending on political ads. And as these states collectively groan with this bad news, I can feel their pain. If I were an optimist, I would say these ads should stop airing with the election in less than two weeks, but in my heart I know television viewers in Indiana may not last that long.

Fresh on my mind is the bombardment of political ads I have had to undergo. There were many times when I was forced to change the channel or turn off my television because I simply couldn’t deal with another ad depicting Obama as a slightly less compassionate version of Stalin. I clearly recall a time when I was watching Jeopardy and, during a bombardment of political ads preceding the Final Jeopardy round, elected to turn off my television. This is how bad it had gotten; I wasn’t even willing to suffer through the ads even though it meant missing the best part of Jeopardy — the part where someone loses because they idiotically wager all but $2 on some obscure category they have no chance at correctly answering, such as “13th Century Recipes.” This is how bad it had gotten for me, and my television wasn’t even located in the Hoosier State.

The sad thing is that it didn’t have to happen. McCain is a sensible guy, and he can make the obvious determination that his ads are not going to change anything, even in the newest batch of swing states he has elected to focus on. He could convince his campaign to stop its advertising, to simply let the election play out and to show mercy to the poor citizens that would otherwise be exposed to his ads. I know I would vote for him if he did this.

But as the McCain campaign now doubles its spending in the new target states, at least Barack Obama supporters can feel comfort in knowing their candidate is not going to waste his time in an ad battle with McCain over these final two weeks. They can take pride in the fact that Obama will not waste money on television ads in states in which the citizens are seriously considering voting against whoever is endorsed in the next ad they see. They can take pride in the fact that Obama will instead donate the millions of dollars in campaign money that he was going to spend in swing states to the poor and to cancer research. Haha! Just kidding! What Obama will actually do, of course, is fire back with an equally massive and unnecessary ad campaign in response to McCain’s.

The one consolation to this bad news is we are entering the crucial time in the campaign where these ads can actually become slightly more interesting. For these final days leading up to the Nov. 4 elections, the Republican and Democratic parties, which are in a constant, four-year battle to get their candidate elected, seem to have trouble handling their anxiety. In a panic that all of their work, spending and bargaining with special interests might go to waste, both parties will begin to fire off ads that are somehow even less accurate than those ads we have seen up to this point. This is the part of the election where we will get to witness the best each party can come up with. And when I say the best each party can come up with, what I mean is the best lies each party can come up with.

It would not be a surprise, in the coming weeks, to “learn” through these ads Obama is funded by an organization that supports the legalization of serial murder or that McCain feels that the death penalty is proper punishment to anyone found trespassing on one of his … however many properties. As if these lies weren’t fun enough, each campaign will follow them by releasing ads in which their hired voiceover person will say, with the same tone of voice your parents used on you when you got caught throwing snowballs at passing motorists back in grade school, how disappointed they are in their opponent for resorting to such a negative campaign.

Now I am not saying this is exactly what will happen. In reality, the campaigns will probably be even more despicable. But it is important to understand that while these ad campaigns can be sickening at times, they are a necessary evil in sorting out who will be the most powerful person in the world. And with such an important decision on the line, you really can’t complain about the political ads you will be exposed to in the coming days. Unless you are reading this in Indiana.

Todd Jasperson ([email protected]) is a second year mathematics student.