If you can identify the six Democrats seeking their party’s nomination for the 2nd Congressional District seat in Tuesday’s primary election, plus the four Republican candidates for the same office, and list all of the politicians – Democrat, Republican, Green, Independent and Also-Ran – who hope to become governor and/or United States senator you probably should seriously consider getting a life.

Woe is us. Here we are just two weeks away from losing precious daylight on our long descent into deepest, darkest winter without having had the benefit of emerging fully from the past one, and additionally we’re faced with a June primary so crowded you can’t tell the players from one another, even with a scorecard. There haven’t been this many names on a ballot since the entire female contingent of your class at dear old Hooterville High was up for queen of the junior prom. Lack of choice is not a legitimate complaint in this election that offers some pretty capable candidates, so non-voting drones don’t have that traditionally lame excuse for shirking their responsibility.

Come Tuesday night, two-thirds of the top-of-the-ticket candidates will be exiled to the dust bin of history, along with their incessant television advertising spots. Small consolation that will be, however, since the survivors will continue to saturate television programming with promises of political nirvana for five more months until the Nov. 5 general election mercifully puts the losers out of their misery.

By then, if I should say to you, “greedy pharmaceutical industry price gougers,” and you don’t reflexively come back with “Chellie Pingree, brown suit, Channels 2, 5, 7 and 12” – much as, I suppose, would Pavlov’s dawg if he could but talk – well, you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din. By then, as well, if you can drive by a paper company’s clear-cut in the outback without thinking of Jonathan (One-Note) Carter, the Green Independent Party’s somewhat shopworn candidate for governor, count your blessings.

Much of the political advertising in this primary seems aimed at tying a particular candidate to the coattails of prominent party leaders who have made their mark on Maine politics. Thus, Republican Congressional hopefuls Kevin Raye and Tim Woodcock don’t mind at all your knowing that they’re damn proud of having once worked closely with Olympia Snow and Bill Cohen, respectively. Their Democratic counterpart, Susan Longley, one-ups the pair by emphasizing her politically astute bloodline as the late Gov. Jim Longley’s daughter and bandying about the name of John Baldacci, whom she hopes to succeed in Congress. Not to be out-name-dropped, Sean Faircloth, another Democrat, shows that he can invoke Baldacci’s name with the best of them and resurrect the ghosts of Ed Muskie and George Mitchell, as well. (Take that, Jim Longley’s kid.) So far, no one has claimed to be a close personal friend and mentor to Margaret Chase Smith, but with three days remaining in the campaign anything’s possible, I suppose.

Whether all this television advertising translates into votes for a candidate, or whether it steers voters in another direction even as it drains the candidate’s bank account, is debatable. Take former Maine State Senate President Mike Michaud’s ads. Democratic primary voters might be so mesmerized by the 2nd District congressional candidate’s perpetual-motion hands that all they can think is, “My God. Cut off this guy’s hands and he couldn’t talk.” Or they could be so impressed that he can wheel a forklift around the Millinocket paper mill without bumping into the water cooler, plus knows enough to wear safety equipment while on the job, that they give him a vote for those accomplishments alone. It’s hard to say.

This campaign-by-television-ad craze can become tedious, quickly turning constituents to dedicated channel surfers in search of blessed relief. Still, even an Old Dawg can learn new tricks from the biennial onslaught. The campaign of Peter Cianchette of South Portland, who lusts after the Republican gubernatorial nomination, is a case in point.

Once upon a time I covered politics for this newspaper, often reporting on Cianchette’s Pittsfield kinfolk who served admirably in the Legislature. I – and everyone around me, including the Cianchette guys themselves – always pronounced the surname “Chin-chet.” But if you can believe the talking heads on television, now comes the rude awakening that the name apparently is actually pronounced “Chin-ket.”

Who knew? (And when did they know it?) More important, why didn’t they let me, the rest of the state, and the guys who owned the name in on the secret 30 years ago? It’s not the first time I have felt like a dope, of course. Just the first time so hopelessly retroactively.

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Winterport. His e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net.