You won’t see the Sarbanes for Congress campaign commercial from YouTube in this post, and there’s a reason for that. John Sarbanes is playing it safe. The son of Senator Paul Sarbanes is running for the United States House of Representatives along a largely formulaic framework: Talk about health care, education, and Social Security - noncontroversial subjects. Above all else, don’t get controversial.

It’s the standard DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) approach advocated by Rahm Emanuel, and it fails to address the truly important issues that should set the campaigns of 2006 apart. You might have seen this same campaign advertisement back in 2000, or 1994, for that matter. Old formulas die hard.

But, you won’t see that advertisement here, because the defensiveness of establishment Democratic candidates also dies hard. The John Sarbanes campaign has disabled the ability to embed their own YouTube commercial video in other web sites. That’s a pretty good formula for NOT getting attention.

This idea that campaigning by lying low and hoping to coast into office is a great disservice to Democratic voters. It’s time to step out of daddy’s shadow, John, and show some originality.