Do you remember the controversy over the Bush campaign’s negative ad in 2000 that flashed the word “RATS”? It seemed like a silly issue, but I just came across a paper in which Joel Weinberger and Drew Westen (the newfound Democratic strategy guru) find that a subliminal stimulus in the word “RATS” is flashed “increased negative ratings of an unknown politician.” (They also find that subliminal exposure to Bill Clinton’s picture decreased negative ratings of both an unknown politician and former California governor Gray Davis.)