Republicans, to borrow a phrase, have a pop-culture problem. To borrow another phrase, while Democrats get to rub elbows with A-listers, Republicans get to “shake Jon Voight’s cold lizard hand.” The downward slide continued this week, with a, uh, memorable ad from a California race.

The plucky challenger for Nancy Pelosi’s seat, John Dennis, has put out an ad depicting Pelosi as some sort of zombie cult leader engaged in animal sacrifice. I do not condone animal sacrifice as a general rule, but I also know the difference between literalism and satire (more so than most Republicans.) What I fail to see, however, is how depicting Nancy Pelosi as leader of some sort of zombie cult–possibly even a zombie army!–is going to make people not want to vote for her. Seriously, who wouldn’t want someone who could command a zombie army as their elected representative?

Let me first say that I don’t believe I have ever heard a Republican candidate address someone as “dude” before. It’s strangely refreshing, while at the same time highly unsettling. That said, the actress portraying Nancy Pelosi appears to have accepted this gig immediately after her final rejection from all the suburban L.A. community theater programs. On a very, very good day, she might pass for a Poor Man’s Jessica Walter, but she’s not likely to even manage the notoriety of a Johanna Goldsmith with this role.

Seriously, though, the knowledge that even the tiniest possibility exists that Nancy Pelosi leads a secretive army of the undead makes me want to fly out to Cali and commit a little in-person voter fraud come November.

(Note to Republicans: The previous sentence is an example of sarcasm. I do not intend to commit in-person voter fraud in California or anywhere else. Nevertheless, feel free to misinterpret me and discuss my blog on Fox and Friends. I need to monetize this biatch.)