Bill Hillsman

Maybe Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak doesn’t really want a job with the Obama administration after all. In a YouTube video released this week, hizzoner momentarily toys with a small felt replica of the person who has the power (among other powers) to hire him. “These are finger puppets?” Rybak exclaims. “Barack Obama finger puppets? I love this!”

With the last month of a very long presidential campaign nearly upon us, we were interested to see what one of the most provocative and insightful consultants in political advertising had to say about Barack Obama and John McCain’s media strategies up to now.

So I phoned up Bill Hillsman, the person Slate has called “the world’s greatest political ad man.” What Hillsman has to say about the use of media so far in the presidential campaign is a warning of sorts to Barack Obama and the Democrats.