The pitch is in

On this momentous election day, you might think presidential almost-ran Howard Dean would be hiding out somewhere, regretting those zealous yells that did his candidacy in -- imagining what might have been if only that Iowa speech to his followers had been a little more ... well, mellow. But that’s only if you don’t know Dean and if you don’t understand the American way -- which is to take your most humiliating public embarrassment and turn it into an ... advertisement!

In fact, there have been dozens of politico pitchmen and women, both election winners and losers, who have signed on to sell products: Think Bob Dole and Viagra; Geraldine Ferraro and Pepsi. Dan Quayle, Mario Cuomo, Tip O’Neill, Ann Richards, Gray Davis, to name a few more.

Dean has done them all one better. With what some saw as unseemly speed, he didn’t even wait for today’s election to start a national ad campaign for a company that is his existential twin.

Yahoo! -- the global Internet conglomerate with its young customer base of online junkies and its signature, unhinged, crescendo yodel -- has met its genetic match in Dean, a doctor, author, former Vermont governor and the first presidential aspirant to find a core constituency via the Internet and blogging. And he is also someone who is possibly most famous for his own unhinged, crescendoing kind of yell.

Now, across the nation, you can hear Dean emitting his screams in radio ads for Yahoo! Local, an Internet search service he proclaims will help him find a bookstore in IOWA! A diner in ILLINOIS! Even museums in CALIFORNIA! The ad got so much positive attention that “we’ve put it on the Internet and it’s gone around the world,” says Yahoo senior brand manager Nick Chavez.

It was a match made in marketing heaven. Which leads to a larger question about the two guys who are today battling it out. If President Bush should lose, will he go on to life as a dignified senior statesman? Or will some Madison Avenue whiz find the perfect product coupling?

And the same for challenger Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry, who isn’t poor but might want to contribute any advertising earnings to favorite causes. (That tradition possibly started with Eleanor Roosevelt, who reportedly did a pitch for milk and donated her fees to charity.)

Marketing and communications experts have differing views about what such commercialism does for a politician’s public servant image -- and exactly what kind of person and what kind of ads can be gotten away with. Martin Kaplan, associate dean of USC’s Annenberg School for Communication, hasn’t yet heard the Dean ad but says “all good advertising draws on what we already think about the product and about the person doing the testimonial.” He cites the case of Dole and Viagra, for example, in which he thinks Dole and the product benefited from the association.

“The manufacturer took something otherwise thought of as scandalous at the time, or maybe just in questionable taste, and by associating the product with a war hero and a respected conservative, the product became safe and wholesome. And the ad kept Dole’s name and face in circulation. It gave a certain edge to his public profile.”

Yes, but after that, could Dole ever run again for public office? Can Dean possibly mount another campaign if he continues to burnish his image as a screamer and a wild man?

“I think there is no longer any such thing in American life as shame. The notion of decorum or appropriateness is unfortunately a distant cultural memory. In other words, my answer is yes, I think he could run. I think Jessica Simpson could run for public office if she wanted to,” Kaplan says.

Asked what products Bush might successfully endorse, if he were to lose the election, Kaplan had to think: “His detractors might suggest he could launch his own series of Books for Dummies. He could certainly endorse exercise equipment, and if there were a brand of anything called Resolute, it would be a natural.”

As for Kerry, “his detractors might say he should advertise footwear, as in flip flops. Or sportswear, because of his sail boarding. Or Berlitz might use him to sell French lessons. And if I had a line of hair care products, I’d try to snap him up.”

Barbara Lippert, ad critic for the industry Ad Week magazine, says the new Yahoo! tie-in will “probably do Dean a lot of good. It’s a perfect match. And it shows he has a sense of humor. It’s very good to make fun of yourself.” As for today’s two candidates, she says either might profit by doing ads that have some degree of taste and humor and show they don’t take themselves too seriously.

“It would be a bit difficult for either of the two presidential candidates to go back to politics if they pitch products after losing the election,” says Melissa St. James, professor of marketing and advertising at CSU San Bernardino. “It would definitely depend on the product. If it’s mainstream, like a cola, it wouldn’t necessarily be detrimental. But it’s a bit harder to regain credibility once a candidate has done a commercial endorsement.”

St. James thinks Bush, in particular, “would have a hard time endorsing products, were he to lose the election. There’s too much division about him. You either really like him or you really hate him. The polarization might be too risky.”

Karen Johnson-Cartee, professor of advertising and public relations at the University of AlabamaTuscaloosa, reveres Dole for doing the Viagra ad out of what she thinks was his “basic decency.

Even people who didn’t like his politics seemed to understand that his ads came after his bout with prostate cancer and that he was doing a service to legions of men who had the disease” and suffer its aftereffects.

So what might Kerry successfully endorse, should he lose? “A new line of nail care products,” Johnson-Cartee says. “I say that because I was very struck by the fact that at the Florida debate, where Bush was exhausted and performed miserably, it was because he had been out in the heat all day, giving comfort and water to the victims of the hurricane.” She says she believes Kerry, on the other hand, spent his day at a spa, though there have been no news accounts to support that.

She thinks if Bush loses, he could have “a wonderful future promoting the National Rifle Assn. or perhaps, a gun manufacturer, such as Remington or Winchester.... Or he might go back to his roots and endorse one of those new flavors of fried pork rinds, which were his daddy’s favorite snack foods.”

Former Rep. Ferraro, now an executive at a global consulting group, made a Pepsi commercial a year after her failed run for the vice presidency. She says that among her conditions to do the ad was not having to drink the product because she doesn’t drink sodas and thought that would be dishonest.

“It was me sitting on the top step of my summer home. My daughters were 18 and 22. We all got to wear Calvin Klein, which we got to keep. My oldest daughter walked in carrying a tray with glasses of Pepsi and saw me reading the newspaper. She asked, ‘looking for a job, Mom?’ Then my youngest daughter comes in and says something about how she bets the best job I ever had was being in politics. I put my arm around her, and I said, ‘uh-uh. The best job I ever had is being a mom.’ ”

Ferraro says the ad “got terrific positive response,” but she remembers she personally got lots of criticism from women who didn’t think she should have done it.

“Some feminists were outraged at the message; some [others] believed I was sending a subliminal message about a woman’s right to choose.”

She says she would definitely do another commercial, if she approved of the message. She has no problem with what Dean has done, she says, although she hasn’t heard the ad.

Not everyone has been so kind. One blogger thought Dean still sounds “like a blood vessel waiting to burst”; another wonders on his site why the former candidate would “want to put himself in William Shatner land? What will he be pitching next? Sedatives? Throat lozenges?”