I think you can officially say that the Clinton campaign is the one in possession of The Rove Playbook™. No need for me to go off on some big rant, because unlike John Kerry, Barack Obama gets after it. His response...
"We’ve seen these ads before. They’re the kind that play on peoples’ fears to scare up votes.
"Well it won’t work this time. Because the question is not about picking up the phone. The question is – what kind of judgment will you make when you answer? We’ve had a red phone moment. It was the decision to invade Iraq. And Senator Clinton gave the wrong answer. George Bush gave the wrong answer. John McCain gave the wrong answer.
"But I stood up and said that a war in Iraq would cost us thousands of lives and billions of dollars. I said that it would distract us from the real threat we face – and that we should take the fight to al Qaeda in Afghanistan. That’s the judgment I made on the most important foreign policy decision of our generation, and that’s the kind of judgment I’ll show when I answer that phone in the White House as President of the United States – the judgment to keep us safe, to go after our real enemies, and to provide the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States with the equipment they need when we do send them into battle, and the respect and care they have earned when they come home. And I’ll never see the threat of terrorism as a way to scare up votes, because it’s a threat that should rally this country around our common enemies. That’s the judgment we need at 3am. And that’s the judgment that I am running for President to provide."
Class. Fucking. Dismissed.
Oh, and the best part? There's a reason why, as you watch the ad, you (more than) halfway expect it to be a GOP 527 ad or one of Bush's FISA propaganda pieces—this is a total and complete ripoff of a McCain ad* from a few months ago...
UPDATE: Bill Clinton responds...
"Now, one of Clinton's laws of politics is this. If one candidate is trying to scare you and the other one is try get you to think, if one candidate is appealing to your fears and the other one is appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope."
Oh, I'm sorry, that was from 2004...
*UPDATE 2: There was apparently a Mondale ad ("The Red Phone") like this in the 80s—used in the primaries against Gary Hart. Feel the plagiarism!
UPDATE 3: Obama already has a response ad out.
"They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. *That's* the *Chicago* way!" -- Jimmy Malone, "The Untouchables"
4 comments:
They're playing off his what has been billed in the MSM as Obama's "stumble" on the Iraq question in the Ohio debate earlier this week.
The sad thing is, that's all the Clinton campaign has on him at this point, and it's not even that big of a thing. His "stumble" was no kind of stumble; i's just that McCain did a decent job of answering it.
More desperation from the Clinton camp. So desperate, they're going to the Bush '04 playbook. I am even more disgusted than before.
The ironic thins is that even ROVE is telling folks to ease up on the Obama muslim nonsense:
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/02/rove_dont_hussein_obama_1.php
Look, I'm not even contending that this is an area that should be off-limits, I just think it reeks of desperation, and for 25 seconds it's really a McCain ad.
I don't really think of this as playing up any Muslim angle, just a general pathetic Rovian fear-mongering that can then be turned right around on Hillary, because she loses on all of these points to McCain.
It might help her against Obama by picking up a few bedwetters but I think the distinctions are drawn and this just underscores Clinton as the politics people seem ready to abandon.
If I wasn't watching this on your blog, I would have thought it was a McCain ad.
Bedwetters. *snicker*
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