That’s the message of a new RNC ad entitled “The Stakes.” Here’s the video:
The Republican Party will begin airing a hard-hitting ad this weekend that warns of more cataclysmic terror attacks against the U.S. homeland. The ad portrays Osama bin Laden and quotes his threats against America dating to February 1998. “These are the stakes,” the ad concludes. “Vote November 7.”
Brian Jones, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said the ad would run on national cable beginning Sunday, but he declined to discuss specifics of the buy. The commercial tracks with Republican Party strategy to make the war on terrorism a central theme of this election. It will air as recent polls show Republicans losing ground as the party best able to combat terrorism.
The script:
“What is yet to come will be even greater”-Osama Bin Laden, Al Jazeera, 12/26/01
“With God’s permission we call on everyone who believes in God…to comply with His will to kill the Americans.”
-Osama Bin Laden (The World Islamic Front, Fatwa, 2/23/98)
[Text Fades: “kill the Americans”]
“They will not come to their senses unless the attacks fall on their heads and…until the battle has moved inside America.” -Osama Bin Laden (Interview, Al-Jazeera, 10/21/01)
[Text Fades: “inside America.”]
“We sent our people to Moscow, to Tashkent, to other central Asian states, and they negotiated. And we purchased some suitcase bombs.” -Ayman Al-Zawahiri (“Al Qaeda: We Bought Nuke Cases,” [New York] Daily News, 3/22/04)
[Text Fades: “suitcase bombs.”]
“Our message is clear—what you saw in New York and Washington and what you are seeing in Afghanistan and Iraq, all these are nothing compared to what you will see next.” -Ayman Al-Zawahiri (“Al Qaeda Threatens More UK, U.S. Attacks,” CNN.com, 8/4/05)
[Text Fades: “nothing compared to what you will see next.”]
“What is yet to come will be even greater”
These Are The Stakes. Vote November 7th.
Frankly, this strikes me as incredibly heavyhanded. Then again, it’s no more so than the infamous “Daisy Girl” ad the Johnson campaign ran against Barry Goldwater way back in 1964:
Jack Beatty summarized it thusly in The Atlantic Monthly:
The ad showed a little girl in a field picking petals off a daisy. “One, two, three, four, five, seven, six, eight, nine,” she counts; then, startled, looks up from the flower. The next scene is of an atomic bomb exploding while Johnson’s voice intones, “These are the stakes—to make a world in which all of God’s children can live, or to go into the dark….” An announcer breaks in, “Vote for President Johnson on November 3. The stakes are too high for you to stay home.”
It worked beautifully. And, indeed, the phrase “These are the stakes” is common to both ads.
