http://www.youtube.com/v/8XpaK-cGO9U&hl=en
by Naftali Bendavid
Seems that phone at the White House won’t stop ringing in the middle of the night.
Several weeks ago, a Clinton campaign commercial that showed a phone ringing at the White House at 3 a.m., with news of a national security crisis, was credited with helping Clinton win the Texas and Ohio primaries. The TV spot was much-discussed (and much parodied), and the Clinton campaign was pleased enough that it is now introducing a similar ad focusing on economic security.
Here’a script, provided by the campaign:
Announcer: It’s 3 am, and your children are safe and asleep.
But there’s a phone ringing in the White House and this time the crisis is economic.
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Home foreclosures mounting, markets teetering.
John McCain just said the government shouldn’t take any real action on the housing crisis, he’d let the phone keep ringing.
Hillary Clinton has a plan to protect our homes, create jobs.
It’s 3 am, time for a president who’s ready.
Hillary Clinton: I’m Hillary Clinton and I approve this message.After the original ad, news organizations did some reporting that suggested that has rarely if ever been a national security crisis requiring immediate presidential action in the middle of the night. Luminaries like Henry Kissinger (admittedly a John McCain supporter) said they could not remember such an occasion.
Surely the same criticism will be made, with even greater force, when it comes to an economic crisis. After all, it’s difficult to imagine an urgent need to create jobs at 3 a.m., and most home foreclosures and market crises presumably take place during the day.
It’s also hard not to wonder how much further the Clinton campaign can take this. Maybe the next ad will focus on global warming. “There’s a phone ringing in the White House,” the announcer will warn ominously. “And this time the crisis is environmental.”
Still, Clinton’s real point, one assumes, is that she is better equipped than Barack Obama to handle urgent, complex threats, whether military or economic. And there’s little doubt the ads memorably convey their message. It remains to be seen if this latest version will resonate with Pennsylvania voters, who go to the polls April 22.
Aides to Clinton defended their choice to run an ad targeting not the Democratic rival but the presumptive Republican one. The ad is designed to express two points of Clinton’s current three-point argument, said communications director Howard Wolfson. First, who is ready to be commander in chief? And who would be the best steward of the economy?
But “the real issue here,” he said, “is, who will be the best person to take on Senator McCain?”
McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds responded, “John McCain is ready to lead with a pro-growth economic plan to lower taxes, cut government spending, empower America’s entrepreneurs and get our economy back on track. Americans can’t afford the Democrats’ liberal agenda to raise taxes, nationalize health care, cut off trade and crush the economy under big government.”
As in the original ad, which was universally known as the “red phone” ad, you’ll note that the phone on the screen is in fact white. And as in the first ad, President Hillary Clinton looks remarkably well-dressed and put together for having just been woken from a 3 a.m. slumber.