Microsoft and Apple are waging the most political ad war ever.

This ad mines even more obscure territory—the clandestine Mojave Experiment and tech bloggers’ complaints that Microsoft ads don’t actually talk about Vista. But again, the process attack reflects Microsoft’s character. Are Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer hiding something from me? Are they trying to bamboozle me into buying a new PC, only to get sideswiped by Vista? Apple is harping on transparency and honesty, two of Microsoft’s biggest weaknesses ever since the antitrust trial.

Most interesting is Apple’s faith that the viewer has already internalized the message of Microsoft’s attack. (Which assumes that you had already internalized the message of Apple’s previous attacks.) By making that assumption, Apple can spend the maximum amount of time driving its message rather than recapping Microsoft’s.

Obama employed the same tactic in a recent counterattack ad. The spot aims to debunk some of McCain’s critiques, including that Obama launched his political career in Bill Ayers’ living room. The ad, though, never mentions Ayers’ name—it assumes you already know enough about it, and Obama’s campaign doesn’t want to remind you any more than it needs to. So instead, it simply shows a picture of a hotel room while the narrator reads, “Barack Obama launched his first campaign here, not in anyone’s living room.” Sure, there’s an elephant in the room, but the ad manages to shove its foot out the door.

If you think we’re over-reaching with these comparisons, the political parallel has already permeated pop culture. One of the nonstop promotions for TBS’s Frank TV trots its subpar impressionists out to impersonate Justin Long, Barack Obama, John Hodgman, and John McCain simultaneously.