Remember that TV ad for U.S. Rep. Jim DeMint starring his two daughters, which transformed DeMint-the-admittedly-stiff-Senate-candidate into adoring dad?

Apparently, DeMint isn’t the only Senate hopeful to get such a makeover.

DeMint’s adman Scott Howell, an S.C. native who also does work for President Bush, shot a spot in 2002 for GOP Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota that looks awfully familiar.

And this summer, Howell did one that’s even more similar for Republican U.S. Senate candidate John Thune of South Dakota, featuring his two teenage daughters.

All three featured daughters bathed in sparkling sunlight, rapid dialogue and loads of smiles.

Near the end of the Coleman ad, then-12-year-old Sarah Coleman looks at her dad with such love, the normally nonpartisan Buzz wanted to move to the Twin Cities and vote Republican.

Democrats call the ads “cookie-cutter.”

“Jim DeMint’s ads are about as fresh and original as a ‘Police Academy’ sequel,” says Adam Kovacevich, spokesman for DeMint’s Democratic opponent, Inez Tenenbaum.

But Howell, whose firm is based in Dallas, insists the ads all are unique.

DeMint’s ad countered his policy-wonk image during this June’s GOP primary. Coleman’s was done after Minnesota’s former Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash during the campaign.

And Thune’s introduces the three-term congressman to voters as a loyal South Dakotan who married his college sweetheart. Thune is running against Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, who has been in the Senate since 1986.

“They speak to different aspects of issues or character traits and were used at different times for different reasons,” Howell says.

JUST BECUZ

A new vocabulary word overheard during Hurricane Charley on WTMA 1250 AM, during a discussion of a wind-buffeted construction portajohn:

Cuzway/ n. alternative name for the Ravenel Bridge being built in Charleston, named for retired state Sen. Arthur Ravenel, R-Charleston, affectionately nicknamed “Cousin Arthur”

BACHELOR BYE-BYE

State Rep. Michael Thompson, R-Anderson, is taking the plunge.

Thompson, 29, is engaged to Julie Bente, an Anderson native who is a model for Italian fashion house Gucci — or at least that is what Thompson claims.

Thompson assured The Buzz that Bente has actually met the young Republican and has not been coerced.

All kidding aside, here’s a heartfelt congratulations to the happy couple.