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Race for President
This spot is wholly illogical on a couple levels. First of all, the "3am phone call" works in the original national security context. Following a catastrophe, the president is contacted and the subsequent and appropriate commander-in-chief duties are then performed. The immediacy makes sense in this setting. As we learned on 9/11, the sad truth is that we don't know when the next hit is coming. Which is exactly why this ad makes no sense. No President is going receive a "3am phone call" about the economy in the sense that Clinton implies. It's in the nature of economics that if you know what you're looking for and you understand the complexities of the market, then you'll be able predict with some accuracy what is coming around the bend. For instance, economic experts on both sides of the isle had been predicting current our current economic downturn. For anyone making a close examination of the market, the warning signs such as the glut of irresponsible credit practices would be setting off red flags left and right. Economic problems develop over time. Stock markets don't crash without a confluence of factors that build upon each other to cause that kind of precipitous drop. The housing market doesn't tank the in manner that it has without a long pattern of bad credit and lending decisions. Setting aside the question of exactly what a President could and/or should do to solve our economic problems, Clinton's ad is either an illogical fantasy of her self-perceived presidential gravitas, or it's nothing more than a tired metaphor being foisted upon an incompatible topic. And finally, it's interesting that Hillary has transitioned targeting her advertising at Barack Obama and has turned her attention here to John McCain. Along with her supposed pronouncement that "Barack Obama can't win" in attempting to woo superdelegate Bill Richardson, this appears to be an attempt by Clinton to refocus the internal wranglings of the Democratic nomination fight to her viability versus John McCain. And this is the right case for her to be making. If she is to win the nomination, the argument she'll make to the superdelegates will entirely center around why she can win and why Obama can't. While both Obama and Clinton are essentially neck-and-neck with McCain in national polling, she continues to match-up better against McCain in the key battleground states. She's running stronger than Obama in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida. For her to win the nomination at this point, she has to make the Democrat superdelegates believe that she's the only viable candidate against McCain in November. And in that sense, her new ad is at least understandable, even if it's built on a completely illogical premise. Filed Under: Race for President E-mail this article to a friend | Printer friendly format |
Countdown to Election Day
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