Thursday, 04.03.08
McCain's Poor Response
Mark Wilson/Getty Images
Aiming at the GOP
03 April 2008
Matthew Yglesias is glad someone is attacking John McCain.
Inside the Clinton Shake-Up
February 2008
When I asked Steve Schmidt, a senior McCain adviser, to give his impression of the ad, he quipped: "It's more likely that the call at 3 a.m. is, 'Senator, you've just lost another superdelegate.'" Mark McKinnon, an even more creative McCain adviser, had an idea: the campaign should respond with an "ad" of its own. Calls were made. McCain ad whiz Justin Germany worked with McKinnon's script and had the video ready a few hours later.
As McCain's traveling press corps boarded the bus, Schmidt clued us in. When we landed, our news organizations were scrambling to get McCain's rapid-response "ad" -- an ad! -- so they could air it in conjunction with Clinton's. One news organization's Web site, widely read by television producers and editors, touted the "response ad" as an "exclusive," imbuing it with urgency and pizzazz.
Here's why I'm scare-quoting. In politics, an ad sells something to voters. It's not free. Clinton's ad is running in Pennsylvania at a cost of more than $200,000. McCain's response is running ... well, only on his Web site. This may sound like a trivial distinction, but a Web video is not an ad. The media shouldn't compare the two without noting that McCain's effort is really nothing more than a video press release designed for the media's consumption, and is in no way meant to rebut the Clinton message among actual Pennsylvania voters. Schmidt told me the campaign would "monitor" the size of Clinton's buy before determining whether to purchase actual time. And sure enough, the campaign has just announced it will make a real ad buy. But the McCain campaign doesn't have much money to spend. Chances are, between now and the general election, he will always rely more on “free media” than Obama. Meanwhile, the Democrats are flush with cash. This little ad is a sign of things to come -- John McCain is facing the toughest political fight of his life, and he can't count on the media to save him.
Note: This post has been updated to reflect breaking news.
A close listeningDavid Weigel parses the new ad, saying the Clinton campaign's metaphor is nonsensical. |
Parsed and pannedJim Geraghty argues that the new ad fails on style and substance. |
Drawn punditryDaniel Kurtzman has fun with the concept in this political cartoon. |
It's also three for the GOPThe McCain campaign responded with its own voice-over. |
Spin cycleTPM Cafe mocks the Clinton campaign for claiming the 3 am ad is a positive one. |
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This is kind of silly. McCain isn't fighting Clinton for any votes in Pennsylvania. Why should he make a big financial outlay to fight Obama's battle in Pennsylvania? As far as McCain is concerned, the better Clinton does in PA the better, since that will drag the Dem primary out even longer.
Releasing an ad on the Internet targets only political junkies -- and outside of PA, those are the only people who care about the Clinon ad in the first place. McCain has almost seven months to target Kestone voters if he wants to. Why should he spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to do that now when he can target all of the horse race enthusiasts by putting it online?
Ambinder's probably right that McCain's cash shortfall will hurt him in the general election, but this incident doesn't really prove that -- unles Ambinder can provide us a reason that McCain should drop a pile of cash on TV ads to help bury Clinton. It's remarkable that Ambinder thinks the presumptive Republican nominee should intervene in a way that would contribute to bringing the Democratic nomination battle to a close.
Posted by Chris | April 3, 2008 4:33 PM