It’s true that Sen. Clinton’s security attack ad echoes Republican efforts. But on two fronts, I think it fails:
1) It’s not a very good ad. It’s, like most of the ads authorized by Clinton and Penn, generic to the point of banality. My first impression on watching it, with the family sleeping and the phone ringing n the background is that someone should pick up the freaking phone!
2) America is so over this crap. The time when politicians, especially Republicans, can scare up votes by screaming OMG TEH TERRORISTS ARE COMING FOR YOUR BABIES UNLESS YOU VOTE FOR US AND GIVE US THE RIGHT TO SUBPOENA YOUR HIGH SCHOOL ATTENDANCE RECORDS is over. The Republican party got a leg up politically by using the boogeyman device, but they’ve used it one time too many. People are aware of the terror threat and want it destroyed but they understand now that hiding under the covers and voting for the candidate who makes you pee your pants in fear isn’t going to produce a solution. In many ways, the people have grown up — ahead of the politicians.
2a) This isn’t really a “Daisy” ad. The actual “Daisy” ad is good and effective, and unlike this generic ad produced a stark contrast between LBJ and the lunacy of what Goldwater was pushing.
Hillary Clinton is echoing the failing Republican message, and their ads this fall are likely to echo this tired old theme. It’s why their chances are slim.
UPDATE: Here’s Obama’s response ad.
and unlike this generic ad produced a stark contrast between LBJ and the lunacy of what Goldwater was pushing.
Do you ever actually read any history books? The ad was so inflammatory and absurd that it was pulled almost immediately because LBJ was roundly criticized for airing it without anything to support such idiocy. By you writing, “the lunacy of what Goldwater was pushing”, you reveal yourself to be truly ignorant, actually buying into the notion that Goldwater actually wanted to start a nuclear war.
Sheesh.
I realize that my comment doesn’t have much to do with the gist of your entry and I actually agree with most of it, but the ‘Daisy’ ad didn’t produce any kind of ‘contrast’ because Goldwater was not pushing for a nuclear war.
Of course Goldwater wasn’t “pushing” for war, just like Bush’s cronies weren’t “pushing” for a war in Iraq. No one ever gets elected on a platform of “If you elect me, I’ll start a war!” Not even Hitler. It’s always on the platform of “I will keep you safe!” “Safe” defined as, “if anyone so much as looks at us cross-eyed, I’ll bomb them back to the stone age!”
So ignore the fact that Hitler spoke of a peasceful Germany while writing that all of Germans’ problems were the fault of meddling Jews and inferior nations. Ignore the doctrines of massive retaliation arguing that any activity deemed threatening by any Communist nation, no matter how slight, should result in the nuclear annihilation of the entire Soviet State. And yes, ignore the fact that half of Bush’s foreign policy advisers were signatories on absurdist theoretical tracts arguing that if only a good enough pretext for the removal of Saddam could be found we could make the mideast flow with milk and oil.
Ok, Reinhard, what exactly was the “lunacy Goldwater was pushing” if you’re such an expert?
No one ever gets elected on a platform of “If you elect me, I’ll start a war!”
Somebody to CC this to John McCain.
Goldwater advocated the use of tactical nuclear weapons. That was and is lunacy. For instance he said “Let’s lob a nuclear bomb into the men’s room at the Kremlin.”
The Johnson people created the ad knowing it would be provocative. There was an outcry for its severity after they ran it, but that was more or less exactly the effect they intended.
You would do well to actually read a history book.
Johnson wasn’t the first to slam Goldwater as trigger happy. His GOP rivals for the nomination did also (read about it here.
And his running mate, William Miller was even more pugnacious than Goldwater.
The real problem with Hillary’s ad is that it asks “Who do you want to answer the phone?” and DOESN’T ANSWER IT. The question is left open.
So Obama made his own ad and ANSWERED the question.
It’s hard to believe that a professional ad writer made such an obvious mistake.
In the Bush White House, that phone would never be ringing at 3 in the morning. I’m not sure when, possibly before 9-11, they cut Bush out of the loop in crisis situations.
In the Bush White House, that phone would never be ringing at 3 in the morning. I’m not sure when, possibly before 9-11, they cut Bush out of the loop in crisis situations.
To be fair, that was probably for the best.