The Thompson campaign apparently intends to run this ad tonight on Fox News during the Republican debate. It’s frankly striking how low the production values are here—the bobbling head is pretty distracting, and one gets the sense this could have benefited from another take or two.

A better sense of Thompson’s message and of what his stump speech might sound like in the coming weeks and months is this appearance at the Iowa state fair last month. Pretty good. Though in both the ad and the speech there is an overwhelming pessimism to his message. It will be interesting to see if that remains the case tomorrow and beyond.