There are good political ads, bad political ads, and then there are those ads that win or lose you an election.

Jack Conway has discovered how an ad can backfire so spectacularly, it may havecost him a senate seat:

A series of new polls show that Kentucky Democratic Senate candidate Jack Conway's now-infamous "Aqua Buddha" ad may have dramatically backfired and turned scores of wavering voters towards tea party favorite Rand Paul.

Conway's disapproval ratings have jumped dramatically over the past week, a trend that makes it an even steeper challenge for the state attorney general to knock off Paul in the race to succeed GOP Sen. Jim Bunning. And the sharp turn-of-events has come in the immediate aftermath of Conway gaining serious traction in the race, when he appeared to have effectively moved it into a dead heat after waging a series of attacks against Paul's views on Medicare.

Now with less than a week to go until Election Day, it seems unlikely that the contours of the race will change once again - though there was new drama on Monday when, outside a Paul-Conway debate, a Paul supporter appeared to have stomped on the head of a liberal activist. Both men have denounced the incident, but Conway has called on Paul to apologize to the victim.

While people close to Conway say they're still optimistic, public polling shows Paul as a clear favorite in the final days of the campaign. Some of the state's most astute political analysts believe Conway's ad may have sealed his defeat. The ad questioned Paul's religious convictions in referencing his youthful mocking of the Southern Baptist-backed administration at his alma mater, Baylor University.

Sometimes, there's just no explanation for how stupid a politician can be.