Well the Doc opened up the old mailbag today and here’s what poured out.

Dear Dr. Ads,

There I was, minding my own business and reading Politico Playbook, when I came across this item about a new ad campaign highlighting Donald Trump’s bromance with authoritarian figures past and present.

The Republican Accountability PAC is rolling out a six-figure ad campaign to take Trump to task, titled “Dictator Donald,” hitting the former president for his recent comment that he wouldn’t be a dictator if he returns to the White House “except for Day One.” The 60-second ad compares Trump to the likes of BENITO MUSSOLINI, HUGO CHÁVEZ, AUGUSTO PINOCHET and Hungarian PM VIKTOR ORBÁN.

In your home for the holidays: The ad will begin running nationally today on CNN and MSNBC. It will also be shown on the Hallmark Channel and during TBS’ “A Christmas Story” marathon in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

That’s some Murderers’ Row Trump is being compared to, eh, Doc? Think the spot might work?

– Christmas Jeer

Dear CJ,

So you’re sitting there watching Catch Me If You Claus when this commercial pops onto your big-screen TV.

Talk about the Ghoul of Christmas Future, eh?

As for how effective the Republican Accountability PAC ad might be, the spot has gotten 164,000 views and 706 comments on YouTube in 48 hours, along with a smattering of press coverage about the group’s six-figure ad buy. (Here’s a list of their donors, via OpenSecrets.)

Then again, anti-Trump ads generally face an uphill battle, as New York Times reporter Jonathan Swan noted several months ago.

A well-funded group of anti-Trump conservatives has sent its donors a remarkably candid memo that reveals how resilient former President Donald J. Trump has been against millions of dollars of negative ads the group deployed against him in two early-voting states.

The political action committee, called Win It Back, has close ties to the influential fiscally conservative group Club for Growth. It has already spent more than $4 million trying to lower Mr. Trump’s support among Republican voters in Iowa and nearly $2 million more trying to damage him in South Carolina.

But in the memo — dated Thursday and obtained by The New York Times — the head of Win It Back PAC, David McIntosh, acknowledges to donors that after extensive testing of more than 40 anti-Trump television ads, “all attempts to undermine his conservative credentials on specific issues were ineffective.”

Of course, an ad campaign depicting Donald Trump as a five-and-dime dictator could conceivably be more effective than accusing him of failing to build a wall at the southern border. And yet . . .

“Even when you show video to Republican primary voters — with complete context — of President Trump saying something otherwise objectionable to primary voters, they find a way to rationalize and dismiss it,” Mr. McIntosh states in the “key learnings” section of the memo.

Regardless, the Republican Accountability PAC ad is a good start.  Let a thousand followers bloom, yeah?