The Mast-Head: Attack Ads Hit Home

On Tuesday morning while we were on our way to school, Adelia announced that she would have picked Lee Zeldin for Congress had she been old enough to vote. Adelia is in the eighth grade and not yet 14. “Mmm-hmm,” I said, “Why’s that?”

“Tim Bishop is being investigated,” she replied.

“Oh. Where’d you hear that?” I asked.

“YouTube,” she said. “And Hulu.”

Like so many of her peers, Adelia seems to live online these days, watching who knows what on her phone. Sometimes she has a television series going. Other times she is deeply focused on what are now known as Youtubers, apparently charming young people speaking directly to the camera about all manner of inanities and self-centered observations. And, for the last month and a half, just about everything she has looked at has been prefaced by a political advertisement attacking one side or the other.

The New York Times led a recent article about the digital pursuit of potential voters with a disturbing anecdote. One morning a couple of weeks ago, apparently, riders on the Montauk branch of the Long Island Rail Road were suddenly and all at once interrupted by the same ad blasting Representative Tim Bishop on their mobile devices. Just who paid for the message is not clear; it is likely to have been one of the dark-money committees now used by both sides. As much as $10 million may have been spent on the Bishop-Zeldin race by the time the counting is done.

At my desk computer, it took me two clicks on YouTube later that day, on “Funny Cats Compilation #1 -2014,” to hit my first attack ad, something about Mr. Bishop and casino chips; I’m not sure what since I had the volume down. Still, one of the reporters happened to stop by at that moment and caught a glimpse just as the first cats began to roll around on the screen.

As we drove along Montauk Highway Tuesday morning, I told Adelia that the F.B.I. had looked into the Bishop allegations and found nothing. It didn’t matter, she said, she was supporting Mr. Zeldin anyway.

“Why?” I asked.

“He’s better looking,” she said.

Welcome to politics circa 2014.