Hillary’s “Old Politics” Campaign Ad Quickly Shot Down By Obama

UPDATED:

Following their 17% defeat in Wisconsin, there was wide speculation about what campaign tactics Hillary would use to try to win Texas and Ohio on March 4th. Some insider reports suggested that Clintons’ recognized that while they needed to fight on, there was a line they should not cross because they didn’t want to do irreparable damage to Obama as a Democratic nominee nor damage their own legacy. That line was national security/fitness to be commander in chief.

Apparently, they’ve tossed such caution aside with this new campaign ad that caters to viewers’ fears. The implication of the ad is that if Obama were elected, he wouldn’t keep your children safe. Only Hillary would. She’d be there, ready to field those plaintive calls for help, 24/7. (The video also suggests her White House would use throw-back telephones that look and sound like they were the type the Clintons used during their first term 15 years ago.) Turns out the ad was created by the same guy who created a very similar ad in 1984 for Walter Mondale against Gary Hart (but with an even older looking phone). It’s not surprising that Hillary would select someone who did this work for Mondale a generation ago. Mondale was the tired old institutional Democrat and king of the special interests who used his superdelegates and old school tricks to beat back the youthful, grassroots campaign of Gary Hart. In other words, Mondale is Hillary’s role model that she is trying, but failing, to live up to.

The character traits we need most in our leaders during a crisis is a cool and calm temperament, courage, wisdom and judgment. They proved key to our survival as a nation during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when some in the military advocated a nuclear option, and JFK responded shrewdly and rationally by accepting a prior offer from Krushchev that provided a face-saving way for the Soviets to back down from the precipice of nuclear war.

The most important project that Hillary ever managed in her public career was the Health Care Task Force while she was first lady. It gave us an opportunity to see her temperament and style of leadership in action. She ran it in a exclusionary and secretive fashion (the White House records from that period still haven’t been released). Despite the Democrats controlling both the House and Senate at the time, she could not work with her own party’s leaders to fashion a consensus plan capable of getting passed. Instead, as Obama accurately stated in the MSNBC debate, she belittled and summarily rejected the efforts of respected leaders of her party, like Senators Bill Bradley and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who tried to fashion compromises that had a greater chance of legislative success. Her bill failed, and in the congressional election of 1994, the voters responded by punishing the Democratic party with a landslide in favor of the GOP from which the Democratic party still hasn’t fully recovered.

Even today, as we saw during the debate, she insists that her plan to achieve universal health care is not only superior, but it is literally the only way. She stubbornly insisted that Brian Williams keep the topic on health care so she could get her last word in on the superiority of her approach. In reality, there is no way GOP members of Congress would allow for the passage of any plan that includes wage garnishments as an enforcement mechanism, and her stubborn insistence on this point demonstrates that she has failed to learn the lessons of the Health Care Task Force’s failure. A leader too stubborn and blinded by ego to learn the lessons of the past is not someone you want managing a crisis.

Obama, by contrast, continues to demonstrate a calmness and coolness when under attack. He’s demonstrated an ability to be respectful while disagreeing, which should serve him well in both domestic and international disputes. At the debate and on the campaign trail, he has given direct, tough, but measured responses to McCain and Hillary’s attacks. He hasn’t responded to every little attack, and he hasn’t lost his cool.

History and science have taught us that experience alone is not predictive of future presidential leadership. In the end, Obama’s attributes are far more likely to lead to a successful presidency than Hillary’s.

Indeed, Obama wasted no time in responding to her ad and making this point himself:

“Now before we open this up for conversation, I just want to take a moment to respond to an ad that Sen. Clinton is apparently running today that asks, ‘Who do you want answering the phone in the White House when it’s 3 a.m. and something has happened in the world?’ We’ve seen these ads before. They’re the kind that play on peoples’ fears to scare up votes.

Well it won’t work this time. Because the question is not about picking up the phone. The question is – what kind of judgment will you make when you answer? We’ve had a red phone moment. It was the decision to invade Iraq. And Senator Clinton gave the wrong answer. George Bush gave the wrong answer. John McCain gave the wrong answer.

But I stood up and said that a war in Iraq would cost us thousands of lives and billions of dollars. I said that it would distract us from the real threat we face – and that we should take the fight to al Qaeda in Afghanistan. That’s the judgment I made on the most important foreign policy decision of our generation, and that’s the kind of judgment I’ll show when I answer that phone in the White House as President of the United States – the judgment to keep us safe, to go after our real enemies, and to provide the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States with the equipment they need when we do send them into battle, and the respect and care they have earned when they come home. And I’ll never see the threat of terrorism as a way to scare up votes, because it’s a threat that should rally this country around our common enemies. That’s the judgment we need at 3am. And that’s the judgment that I am running for President to provide.”

Incredibly, Obama has already produced an ad that directly refutes Hillary’s ad. The speed in which they produced this response — literally within hours — is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Here it is:

And here is another new Obama ad relating to national security:

UPDATE II: Hillary’s Ad Also Seems to “Borrow” Heavily From this McCain Supporter’s Ad: