About a month ago, shortly before the Texas and Ohio primaries, Hillary Clinton’s campaign unveiled what quickly became the most talked-about campaign ad of the year — the 3 a.m. spot. The point of the ad, of course, was to argue that international crises can erupt at any moment, and Clinton believes she’s better prepared to deal with them, even in the middle of the night, than Barack Obama.
Whether the commercial was effective is open to debate — she won both Texas and Ohio, though I’d argue it was for reasons beyond the 3 a.m. ad — but given the attention it received, the Clinton campaign has unveiled a sequel.
If the feel of the ad seems familiar, it’s because it’s extremely similar to the first one — same announcer, same phone ringing, same sleeping kids. In this case, though, the voiceover tells the viewers, “It’s 3 am, and your children are safe and asleep. But there’s a phone ringing in the White House and this time the crisis is economic. Home foreclosures mounting, markets teetering. John McCain just said the government shouldn’t take any real action on the housing crisis, he’d let the phone keep ringing. Hillary Clinton has a plan to protect our homes, create jobs. It’s 3 am, time for a president who’s ready.”
The spot is getting tons of attention — which, I assume, was part of the point in making it — meaning that the Clinton campaign is going to do really well in terms of a bang for its buck (people will see the commercial, and then see it a lot more when the media talks about the commercial). As for whether the ad is good, I think it does some things very well, and other things less well.
My principal problem with the spot is that it seems like the campaign is going to the “3 a.m. well” once too many times. At the risk of being overly literal, mounting home foreclosures wouldn’t prompt a call to the president in the middle of the night. Neither would any real economic crisis (even if the Nikkei were to completely tank, the White House staff would wait until morning to tell the president, since there’s not much he or she could do about it at 3 a.m. anyway).
In this sense, the argument is kind of forced. The campaign likes the 3 a.m. idea, and likes emphasizing the economy, so they pushed the two together. It’s a little clumsy.
But my concerns about incongruity are minor compared to how much I love the Clinton campaign’s challenge to John McCain. This is the first major Democratic ad of the season that takes the Republican candidate on directly, and it hits him on one of his more vulnerable issues.
For Clinton, this works on a variety of angles — it sidesteps attacks on Obama, it softens up McCain at a time when he’s getting a free ride, and it makes the pitch to superdelegates about the kind of aggressive style we’d see from Clinton if she were the nominee.
For its part, the McCain campaign responded by throwing together a copy-cat video, arguing that Dems want to raise taxes. As responses go, it’s tired and sad.
I’ve been saying for a while now that the prolonged Democratic process could potentially have an upside if the candidates used this as an opportunity to go after McCain together. I’m glad Clinton’s on board with the plan. Obama campaign, it’s your turn.