It's a bit weird to watch the Clinton campaign trying to follow Walter Mondale's playbook. The repeated invocations of the SNL skit were a clear throwback to Mondale's "Where's the beef?" attacks on Hart. Kill the insurgent through safe invocations of mocking pop culture! But that fell apart pretty quickly. So onto the next play. Here's Mondale's famous "Red Phone" ad:
And here's Clinton's new ad, which was done by the same guy:
Frankly, the ad struck me as pretty hokey. The continual invocation of "your children" at "3 am," the weird oscillation between talk of family and talk of terror -- the whole thing reads like Rudy Giuliani getting endorsed by the Children's Defense Fund. Worse, it actually seems like a more effective argument for McCain then Clinton.
