Dale Peterson returns, and his ad-maker reflects

Dale Peterson fell short in his viral-video-fueled campaign for Alabama Agriculture Commissioner, but he returned Thursday morning with a new, gun-slinging endorsement of one of his rivals, John McMillan.

I chatted briefly with Ladd Ehlinger, Jr., who directed both ads -- and immediately pointed out that the gun Peterson is using is "one John Wayne used a lot."

"He wanted to endorse John," said Ehlinger, "we were going back and forth about how to do it, and I said, you know, we've got to [do] something fun. People remembered the part in the first ad about protecting lawn signs, so let's just show Dale watching John's back. We shot this in the morning on Dale's llama farm. We considered having the llamas in there, but thought that would be too random."