Clinton Plays “I’d Be Better in a Crisis” Card Again
By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in 2008 Election, HillaryIn a new Hillary Clinton ad Osama bin Laden makes a cameo. So do images of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The message: being president is tough and requires someone like Clinton who can take the pressure. Subtext: Barack Obama can’t take the pressure.
This is the exact same appeal as the 3 a.m. phone call ad that ran before the Texas primary. Except this new ad is more direct. But, really, anytime Clinton uses the “I’d be better in a crisis” argument, my first reaction is: why? What proof is there that she’d handle a national emergency any better than Obama?
If Clinton is implying that her greater experience makes her more capable in a crisis, then she’s setting herself for a losing comparison with John McCain who not only has more governmental experience but who actually has life experiences that might prepare one for extremely difficult situations. Of course, no president is truly prepared for national crisis. For Clinton to pretend that she is better prepared is just a slight-of-hand trick. More experienced than Obama? Sure. More likely to act well under pressure? We don’t know.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Hillary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:43 am
To be fair, watching Sen. Clinton’s and Sen. Obama’s campaign speeches, I must say that at least she actually gives policy prescriptions for the various problems our country faces today. Sen. Obama’s speeches on the other hand, focus almost entirely on inspirational talking points, and have less details on what he proposes to do to fix everything that is broken. In fact, during every speech, even as she provides details on what she is going to do to solve this country’s problems, she also tells people to visit her website for more details on the plans she outlines in her speech. It’s a stark contrast, she seems to have plans for almost everything and talks about it often and yet Sen. Obama’s supporters generally deny that she does this. Sen. Obama’s campaign, I think, can be described with a phrase used by Fed Chair Alan Greenspan to describe what was going on in the stock market during the go go 90’s, “Irrational exuberance.” Everybody is buying into Sen. Obama without really looking at whether what they are getting actually is more valuable than what they are trading it for.