A man with perfectly coiffed hair and a well-pressed suit posed stiffly in front of Florida’s historic Capitol the other day, while a photographer sprawled in front of him and snapped pictures for an advertisement.

He wasn’t a senator or candidate for Congress or anything like that, but he looked the part. A local advertising and public-relations agency was preparing some new promotional materials and, presumably, these shots will be stored on a computer and digitized into a magazine cover or a multi-media sales pitch.

It’s a funny thing about Florida’s Capitol. Nobody ever uses the real one in their ads. Even the Tallahassee Democrat, when we shot some "house" ads a few years ago, took me out to two locations -- the east steps of the Old Capitol and a sixth-floor-level rooftop of the new one, so we could have the big grey dome of the old one in the background.

Probably, that’s because the "real" 22-story Capitol looks like just another office building. From a scenery standpoint, no art director wants the camel’s humps of the House and Senate domes -- which Tallahasseeans have been known to describe less than charitably -- and there’s nothing architecturally about the tall tower that imparts a stolid sense of seriousness, power and purpose.

In fact, when the new Capitol was in the designing stages, then-Gov. Claude Kirk labelled the concept "princely and ponderous palaces for political potentates." On the inside, it looks like a Capitol, with the bronze dome and lots of flags. From the outside, it has all the romance and imagination of the headquarters of some big insurance companies, banks or mega-lawfirms -- which, considering what goes on inside, is not off the mark.

But if you’re selling a politician, or an idea on the ballot, you want the ornate, historic building with the big columns, Baskin Robbins awnings and Gaslight-era lampposts. Sometimes, you’ll see a legislator bursting out of its weather-beaten wooden front doors in earnest conversation with a few other guys as they hurry down the broad steps, or strolling beneath moss-draped trees with their families, pointing out monuments to the kids.

Sometimes, they even go down Apalachee Parkway a block and film on the center strip as the candidate strides purposefully across the street. That way, they get the dome and big columns in the background. Best of all, they’ll pull a couple of cop cars up in the driveway, with flashing blue lights, and our candidate will be filmed in animated conversation with some appreciative-looking officers, conveying a sense of toughness.

I came here in 1969, when the Old Capitol was the only one we had, and in nearly 40 years, not one politician has ever said, "Let’s go outside and stand next to some police cars and continue this conversation..." That only happens in ads -- and only on the Old Capitol side of the complex.

But if you live in Tallahassee, you wonder -- how many voters in Miami and Jacksonville and Tampa realize that the important-looking building their legislator seems to be frequenting is actually a museum?