Will Clinton or Obama protect your children?
If you vote for Barack Obama, your children are going to die in their beds. This is the message of the latest Clinton television ad running in Texas. The spot starts with a moonlit shot of a blond toddler in the warm tangle of her sheets and then cuts to a close-up of an infant also in deep REM sleep. For the next 15 seconds, the images shift from one cherubic sleeping face to another. You’d think you were watching a Baby Ambien ad if the narrator weren’t giving you nightmares: “It’s 3 a.m., and your children are safe and asleep. But there’s a phone in the White House, and it’s ringing. Something’s happening in the world. Your vote will decide who answers that call. Whether it’s someone who already knows the world’s leaders, knows the military—someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world.” At this point, we see our first adult, a concerned mother, opening the door and peering into her children’s bedroom. “It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep,” the narrator repeats. “Who do you want answering the phone?” [complete article]
Editor’s Comment — Is this Hillary’s last ditch attempt to save her campaign, or has she already thrown the towel in and decided that as a McCain surrogate she has a long shot of being chosen as his VP? I jest of course, but it’s hardly surprising that National Review would say “it is awfully nice of Hillary to test out John McCain’s key theme against Obama,” and that Red State would have come up with a very modestly revised version of the ad.
Early on in this election, I was content with either a Hillary or Obama victory. As this is has gone on, I become more and more convinced that a Hillary presidency might not be much of an improvement on a McCain presidency. Its ironic that, after criticizing Obama for using a page out of Karl Rove’s playbook (a stretch that never seemed to sway anybody) Hillary is using the fear tactics that have DEFINED the Bush era to try to win voters. The worst case scenario mentality brings the worst out of America, while Obama is trying to call out the best of us by taking on the culture of fear and recalling the intrinsic values of the American experiment. If this is the campaign Hillary is willing to run, what does it tell us about the presidency she is willing to have?