John McCain is running a slightly altered version of Hillary Clinton’s “3 a.m.” ad, Laura Meckler reports for the WSJ.
Here’s the video:
Meckler says this “may be the earliest attack ad ever aired by a candidate for president who has already secured his party’s nomination and is aiming at the other party.” I don’t know about that or even how to check — What qualifies as a “negative” ad? Who’s doing the scoring? — but this is pretty light in tone.
It’s easy to see how the McCain campaign was able to churn out a response spot so quickly. It uses identical footage, stolen right from the Clinton ad. The only difference is that it closes with a photo of McCain, replacing the photo of Clinton in the original.
The spot’s opening words are identical, too. Then it pivots to say that the Democrats would solve the problems by raising taxes and taking “more money out of your pocket.” It concludes: “It’s 3 a.m., time for a president who is ready.”
If nothing else, this ad seems certain to help solidify 3 a.m. as the critical hour for decision-making at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., regardless of how many decisions are actually made at that hour.
Indeed. Especially economic decisions.
Still, we quite literally knew this ad was coming. Virtually every observer at the time figured McCain would use this ad, either against Clinton or Obama, at some point. Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more variants in store.
