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HD-9 Republican Celeste Gamache has always been a bit of a novel candidate. A former JAG officer and veteran of two tours in Afghanistan, Gamache is generally regarded as a smart, articulate, and up-and-coming community leader. In any other district, her resume combined with a smart campaign would make her a serious contender for the State House. Denver’s HD-9, however, leans so far to the left ideologically and in terms of registration that Gamache hasn’t been the beneficiary of Republican efforts to keep the speaker’s gavel — her defeat at the hands of Democrat Paul Rosenthal is a foregone conclusion.

Just because Gamache has the potential to be a great candidate, however, doesn’t mean that she knows what she’s doing. Take, for example, the campaign commercial she released on the web a few months ago. That is to say we think it’s a campaign commercial and not Gamache’s entry to an 80’s video dating service.

Seriously, was this thing filmed and edited in 1987? That tacky synth music at the beginning is a nice touch, as are the words that soar across the screen. Jobs, taxes, seniors: If this is a dating video, we’re not sure those interests would earn Gamache much attention. And is that the Papyrus font? Woah, dude, sleek.

Then, for whatever reason, Gamache appears in a little box surrounded by a neon green background. Here’s a piece of advice for anybody ever making a commercial, political or otherwise: Do not use neon colors. In hindsight, they were barely cool in the 80s and they’re certainly not cool now.

Surrounded by her campaign logo, her website url, and a cell phone number, it’s almost impossible not to mistake Gamache’s spiel for a dating video. She introduces herself as “running for state representative in House District 9,” but it’s just as easy to imagine Gamache saying that she’s “looking for a life partner who she can talk to deep into the night and have fun with.”

We’re not sure why, exactly, Gamache decided to produce this video. Maybe she has a nephew, or more likely, a “tech-savvy uncle” with an old camcorder, who offered to make her a really slick campaign advertisement. Voters aren’t going to see it, which in this case is probably a good thing, but maybe Gamache thought that using innovative new technologies like the YouTubes would get the youth on her side.

In her defense, Gamache’s 84 year old campaign manager probably thought this was a really groundbreaking use of cutting-edge technology.  It certainly was when she was in her fifties!