The start to Oklahoma’s 2026 Gubernatorial Contest is literally going bananas!
Over the last couple of months, Charles McCall has made a smooshy squish into the Governor’s race by launching a series of anti-trans attack ads that – while using a sliced banana as a metaphor for sex-change and castration – try to paint Attorney General Gentner Drummond as a pro-trans liberal wokie.
I guess some Tulsa special interests didn’t like McCall’s monkey business.
In response, they used AI to craft their own banana-heavy ad that, by twisting and spinning a vote McCall made as Speaker, attempts to paint the crazed banana slicer as a trans-loving zealot who – according to conservative fearmongers – wants grown men to use girls’ bathrooms and play lady sports.
Check this out:
Regardless of the candidate, topic or tone, my favorite political attack ads are ones that either incorporate and/or use a candidate’s own attack ads against them, so on that note – and while ignoring that it helps demonize and attack an entire demographic of people who simply want to live freely and openly as they are – I’d give this spot a good A-.
I like how the random bananas were spotted brown and all the splices of McCall’s chops and slices.
That being said, something about AI McCall was a little too off. Like, why was he staring blankly at his thumb or whatever?
Seriously, did AI McCall just take a bunch of magic mushrooms? If I were in charge of things at the special interest that set up that PAC, I’d have used Sora to have McCall peel a banana, or better yet, eat some and throw it up like one of the chimps at the zoo. That would have been really cool!
Anyway, while I’m out here offering free creative direction to political consultants, the more mainstream media is just complaining about it.
For example, instead of spending their time investigating the twisted claims of the ad – or why their news channel allows such ads to air in the first place – Channel 9 filed a story that just bitched about it:
Oklahoma gubernatorial candidate Charles McCall is the subject of a political ad that appears to use artificial intelligence. That raises questions about the overall future of political campaigns as technology quickly advances.
AI is relatively new to the mainstream market, and government regulation is still catching up. Two experts expressed concerns about the future of political campaigns.
The ad that includes McCall includes video depictions of McCall that are not real. This is AI in action. This form of media had News 9 political analyst Scott Mitchell eyeing potential trouble.
“It is disturbing,” Mitchell said. “I think when you become untethered from reality, then you’re able to incite.”
Listen. I know I’m not a political consultant for a conservative Oklahoma media empire hellbent on preserving the status quo, but when I watch that commercial, I’m far more disturbed that politicians are using bananas to out-anti-trans each other than I am that one of them used an AI caricature of a candidate.
AI Scott Mitchell would agree, right?
But in all seriousness, yeah – there probably need to be rules for how we use AI to depict other people, especially non-public figures.
Still, if you ask me, the bigger concern is that instead of discussing or addressing real issues that affect Oklahomans, our politicians continue to wage pointless culture wars over imaginary threats, internet boogeymen, and now, apparently, smooshy pieces of fruit.
Stay with The Lost Ogle. We’ll keep you advised.
