Last-Minute Ad Blogging

I think I'm with Kevin Drum on this one, the latest ad from Hillary Clinton shows a retrospective of American challenges over 60 years, bin Laden's in it for half a second, and we shouldn't be so afraid of that. Clinton is not associating Obama with bin Laden the way Gephardt associated Dean with bin Laden in 2004, she's saying that the next President has all kinds of challenges and she's better prepared to face them. You can accept or reject that categorical (I reject it), but it's not an off-limits argument.



In fact, in the fall I'd be happy for Democrats to use bin Laden imagery LIBERALLY in their ads, as part of the argument that the diversion of Iraq took us away from finishing the job when we had Al Qaeda on the run, and we've offered a policy of retreat from Al Qaeda ever since, and the terrorist group is stronger than ever with a safe haven in the FATA region in Pakistan. This "bin Laden/ooga booga" reflexivity from Democrats has to stop.

The Obama campaign's response to this ad reflects this to an extent, but then has that addition of whining about the "politics of fear," when in fact the first half of their statement is the right answer, and constantly raising the "politics of fear" angle has the impression of sour grapes.

"When Senator Clinton voted with President Bush to authorize the war in Iraq, she made a tragically bad decision that diverted our military from the terrorists who attacked us, and allowed Osama bin Laden to escape and regenerate his terrorist network. It's ironic that she would borrow the President's tactics in her own campaign and invoke bin Laden to score political points. We already have a President who plays the politics of fear, and we don't need another."

I would have left it at the first half, and even created an ad with exactly that script. It happens to be true.

(I do think this shows a concerted effort to reach undecideds on the part of the Clinton campaign, showing to me that the race in Pennsylvania is fairly close. Obama actually finally broke 45% in a poll overnight, and Survey USA moved this back to 6 points. The internals show that massive turnout in the Philly region could make this even closer. Obama is not predicting a win, which is pretty wily, and he's likely right. But I think he's done a good job of expectations management in what is a tough primary for him demographically.