All political communication includes a set of denotative references to individual or collective entities. To a great extent, politicians develop their argumentative and persuasive strategies through the use of these references. In an earlier study (1994a) concerned with televised political debate, I put forward the hypothesis that the fundamental referential network of political argumentation includes four main elements: self-reference, reference to the adversary, reference to other politicians, and reference to experts. I also attempted to demonstrate how these types of references form a basis for a very specific type of arguments called the ad arguments. Politicians refer to themselves or their own party when they attempt to illustrate their credibility. They refer to their adversaries or their adversaries' parties in order to cast doubt on the opponent's ideas or abilities. For these same reasons, they sometimes refer to other political figures, be they allies or adversaries, or to nonpartisan players whom they welcome into the debate by virtue of their recognized expertise. Of course, other kinds of denotation do exist in political communication. For example, politicians make great use of reference to the electorate. But if we consider only the actors on the forefront of the political scene, it seems reasonable to limit the true references in political communication to self-reference, reference to the adversary, reference to other politicians, and reference to other experts. The ad arguments regroup a certain number of arguments which we have named beginning with the Latin prefix ad. Among these ad arguments are the ad hominem argument (an attack on an opponent's person rather than on his or her ideas), the ad verecumdiam argument (an appeal to authority), the ad populum argument (an appeal to popular sentiment or prejudices), the ad misericordiam argument (an appeal to pity and sympathy), the ad baculum argument (threatening), and the ad adversarium argument (the diversionary tactic whereby discussion is turned to the subject of a common adversary or enemy). Ad arguments have been historically identified with fallacies and therefore considered as invalid or faulty arguments closely related to sophisms, paralogisms, and other forms of pseudo-reasoning. Aristotle analyzed certain ad arguments in his On Sophistical Refutations and in the Rhetoric, and Locke proposed an initial characterization of certain ad arguments in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. However, only recently have scholars begun to develop a systematic theorisation of ad arguments in a theory of fallacies, the first being Hamblin (1970), followed by Woods and Walton (1989 and 1982), Walton (1987), Engel (1982), and many other authors who have produced pertinent or synthetic works. Among the latter, we must mention van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1992) and van Eemeren, Grootendorst and Kruiter (1987) on the subject of argumentation in communication. Each of the different types of references can be used to support an ad argument. For example, self-reference and reference to experts can be used as a basis for an ad verecumdiam argument. Reference to an adversary is often a basis for an ad hominem argument. The ad adversarium argument, and certain more specific forms of the ad hominem argument, such as the guilt by association argument (whereby the discredit commonly attributed to a group or individual with which an opponent associates is transferred onto the opponent), are based on reference to another politician. One could also imagine that, under certain circumstances, references to an individual or individuals could allow for the development of ad populum, ad misericordiam, and ad baculum arguments. I propose to examine the structure of the referential network developed in televised political advertising as well as the types of arguments, particularly the ad arguments, to which these references contribute. I also discuss the ethical implications of referential argumentation and reveal a distinction between ad argument and fallacy. …