Three Minnesota candidates who didn’t win their elections — or haven’t won yet anyway, with the U.S. Senate race still in limbo — can take a little consolation in having their television ads (or ads meant to benefit them) honored on national best-of lists.

“Running,” the first TV ad that Democrat Ashwin Madia aired in his losing bid to replace U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad in Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District, was this morning ranked among the nation’s eight best ads in U.S. House races this year by The Fix, a Washington Post blog. The Fix said:

There are a lot of boring ways to do a biography ad. This was a standout because it broke from convention — telling the story of Madia, an unsuccessful candidate for Congress in Minnesota’s open 3rd district, while he ran along the streets of the district. “When I was in Baghdad I was never able to do this,” Madia said. “Just go anywhere and run.” Powerful stuff.

Last week, The Fix bestowed an equivalent honor on the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s “Angry Al” ad, the bleeped-out highlight reel of bad words and bad attitude from Democrat Al Franken.

The satirical magazine Radar (the print incarnation of which just suffered its second or third and perhaps fatal death) determined that two Minnesota U.S. Senate race ads merited inclusion among its “Best Campaign Ads in Our Golden Age of Politics“: a fairly pedestrian anti-Al spot from the National Rifle Association and another from the National Federation of Independent Businesses that Radar appreciated for its association of Franken with assorted worklife miseries like missing your bus.

Just before Election Day, the Huffington Post corralled 60 campaign ads deemed ”Most Memorable” (not quite the same as “Best”). That list included three from Minnesota: Franni Franken’s testimonial for her husband Al, a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spot in which a mother whose son was killed in Iraq blames Coleman, and the National Republican Campaign Committee’s attack on Ashwin Madia that became famous for darkening Madia’s skin tone.

That last one offers flattery of the proverbially sincerest sort to its intended target: It’s built on clips lifted from Madia’s original “Running” ad. Here are those two ads: