I return to an old advertising adage for the title of today's article. Because sometimes no matter how much money you pump into advertising a product, "If the dogs won't eat the dogfood, the ad campaign will fail in the end." Or a slightly different version: "If the dogs won't eat the dogfood, it won't sell. I don't care how many pretty pictures you put on the packaging." In other words, if the product itself is crap, it won't matter how brilliant the ad campaign is or how much money you throw at advertising, because people aren't going to buy your product, period.

Republicans, heading into the post-Labor Day homestretch of the midterm campaign season, had a big advantage over the Democrats: lots and lots of money. They thought they had enough money to absolutely flood the airwaves and get their message out to the voters, which would be a deciding factor in the race. But new data is showing that the dogs are turning up their noses at the actual product set before them. From an interesting report in the Washington Post today:

Since Labor Day, when President Donald Trump opened up his war chest for the midterms, Republicans have pumped half a billion dollars into competitive House and Senate races.

A month later, the polls haven't moved in their direction.

High-quality public surveys show Democratic Senate candidates tied or leading in Alaska, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas -- the same as before Labor Day. Democrats' lead on the generic congressional ballot has slightly widened since, from about six points to roughly nine, according to analyst Nate Silver's polling average.

Notably, the surge of attack ads has not sunk the Democrats at the center of some of the most expensive races. More voters hold a favorable than unfavorable view of Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico, according to a late September New York Times-Siena poll -- despite more than $115 million spent attacking him. Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed's favorability actually increased by five points since August, to 47 percent, Fox News surveys show, despite $76.2 million in attacks.

That's pretty stunning when you think about it. The GOP spent half a billion dollars and the needle either didn't budge at all or it actually moved towards the Democrats. Democrats, predictably, were pretty dismissive of the onslaught of GOP ad spending. A spokeswoman for the Democratic Senate Majority PAC responded: "They should be getting more for what they're spending, and they're not. Can they spend their way out of a bad economy, a bad president, a bad candidate, and a bad message in Texas and Kansas?"

She's got a point. Donald Trump is at an all-time low in his job approval ratings. His war of choice with Iran is massively unpopular, as are the sky-high gasoline and diesel prices it has directly caused. Inflation remains high, and Trump's tariffs and trade wars remain unpopular as well. And the "out" party always has a built-in advantage in midterm elections -- especially when it is crystal clear which party is to blame (since Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress). Trump appears largely unconcerned with the voters' biggest issue (affordability) and even tries to gaslight people into thinking it is somehow a made-up problem (or as he puts it, a "Democratic hoax"). That doesn't help much when people fill up their cars and trucks or see the damage at the grocery store checkout line. All they see is Trump being obsessed with non-important issues (like building his precious ballroom).

The dogfood is rotten, in other words. It isn't even remotely tasty. It gives off a fetid odor, and no amount of scaremongering advertising can really change that reality.

Part of the Democratic advantage is (for once) getting out ahead of the avalanche of fearmongering GOP ads. In Texas, in particular, James Talarico masterfully did so, due in part to an opening given him by the circumstances of his race. Talarico outright won a contested Democratic primary, but the two top Republican candidates (sitting Senator John Cornyn and Ken Paxton) had to go through an incredibly brutal runoff phase of their primary election. For months, Talarico was able to fundraise and start advertising, running against whichever Republican would emerge from the runoff. Paxton did emerge, but he so annoyed and so disgusted a huge amount of Republican donors that he has struggled to raise much money at all. So all summer long, Talarico essentially owned the Texas airwaves.

By doing so, he was able to define himself in the voters' eyes long before vicious attack ads started appearing against him. This can be a crucial strategy to win a political campaign, and Talarico seems to have rather brilliantly pulled off this feat. Money from outside Republican groups did (reluctantly) start pouring in when the GOP bigwigs finally faced the fact that they could in fact lose a Senate seat in Texas, but it might just prove to be too little, too late for Paxton. To be fair, Paxton is one of the most odious politicians in modern memory, which also has had a lot to do with Talarico's success (Cornyn probably would be running ahead of Talarico in the polls right now, if he had won his primary race).

But even in states where the GOP didn't spectacularly shoot itself in the foot their ads just aren't working. The headwinds Republicans face are at gale force right now. The party has no new ideas and no viable solutions to the biggest problems voters are concerned about. They're trying to run on their record, but the voters aren't enthused about that either. Telling voters that they should be happy to pay more for gasoline just doesn't seem to be working (no surprise there, really).

The political rule of thumb that the party with the most money to spend always wins is getting less and less true with each election cycle, it seems. Kamala Harris spent roughly twice what Donald Trump did (Harris spent, in her extraordinarily short campaign, over one billion dollars), and still lost. Republicans are now facing the same reality.

Sometimes it just doesn't matter how much you have to spend, if the dogfood sucks and the dogs won't eat it. And right now "dogfood" seems a pretty apt metaphor for the Republican platform in general.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant