Obama manager: Clinton already had her 'Red Phone' moment Nick Juliano

Published: Friday February 29, 2008



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Print This Email This Barack Obama's presidential campaign manager responded to an ominous new commercial from Hillary Clinton that seems to question whether the young Illinois senator can protect the country. "It's 3am and your children are safe and asleep. But there's a phone in the White House and it's ringing. ... Your vote will decide who answers that call," says a spooky sounding narrator in Clinton's new ad, which began airing in Texas Friday. David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, said the ad should cause voters to question the judgment of both presidential candidates, where he said Obama has the advantage. "Sen. Clinton has already had her red phone moment ... in 2002. It was on the Iraq war, and she and John McCain and George Bush" displayed the same judgement, Plouffe told reporters on a conference call Friday. Clinton was joined by a majority of Senate Democrats, including former presidential candidate John Edwards, and every Republican in voting for the 2002 resolution that authorized the invasion of Iraq. The Clinton campaign responded on its own conference call, with her advisers insisting the ad was not meant as an attack on Obama, rather it was trying to pose a question to voters. "This is a positive ad, it has very soft images," Clinton's chief strategist Mark Penn told reporters. Clinton adviser Howard Wolfson began the call saying the campaign was "very proud" of the ad. The Obama campaign announced Friday morning that it would re-release a commercial featuring Air Force Gen. Merrill A. McPeak, a former member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, praising the Illinois senator's judgement. After the call with Obama's staff, McPeak and other foreign policy advisers spoke to reporters on a conference call, which was held simultaneous with the Clinton campaign's. McPeak said the ad raised questions of what kind of temperament voters should look for in their president, and argued Obama was better suited for the Oval Office. "Barack has shown that he has exactly the kind of temperament we need," McPeak said. "He's the kind of guy that military leadership will want to see in the White House, someone you can predict what his action is going to be." Sen. Richard Durban (D-IL) said Obama's opposition to the war demonstrated he had the judgement to be president. "I can recall when it was 12:50 a.m. and the date was Oct. 11 2002, it was truly a red phone moment on the floor of the Senate," Durbin said, referring to the date of the Iraq war resolution, which he voted against. "Seventy-seven senators gave the wrong answer." Clinton's advisers charged that Obama's war opposition amounted to little more than giving a speech at an anti-war rally in 2002, and they noted that he and Clinton have voted the same on Iraq measures in the chamber since he was elected in 2004. Plouffe said the arguments in Clinton's ad were worn out and noted its similarity to Walter Mondale's "Red Phone" ad from the 1984 primary and Lyndon Johnson's infamous "Daisy" ad, which only aired once during the 1964 campaign. Clinton's latest ad was created by the same ad-man responsible for Mondale's Red Phone. Clinton adviser Wolfson disputed the similarity to the daisy ad. "The dandelion [sic] ad envisions basically the apocalypse," he said. "And that is not at all what this ad does." The latest Clinton ad "will not be effective whatsoever," Plouffe predicted, going on to praise Obama's judgement for opposing the war from the start. He also noted that Clinton and McCain, the Republicans' presumptive nominee, have been sounding similar themes in their national security-based attacks on Obama. "John McCain and Hillary Clinton showed the same judgment on Iraq," Iran and diplomacy, Plouffe said. "It's a mindset that needs to change."



