Fear works. (Read Drew Westen's The Political Brain.) The 3AM red phone commercial scared voters. It activated the fast-firing neural system that Mandy Grunwald and Mark Penn were targeting. It was worthy of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove. Senator Obama outspent Senator Clinton 3-1 in Ohio and Texas and despite his momentum, still lost. Now what? If Senator Obama wants to win in Pennsylvania and in the possible do-over states, he needs to step up his armamentorium. Anything else would be struthious.
If he doesn't go negative -- and take the heat as the press paints him as abandoning his purer-than-thou persona -- he'll lose in Pennsylvania and surrender even more momentum to Senator Clinton. Her campaign will continue to drive the "not-vetted yet" message. They'll continue to link him to Farrakhan through Reverend Wright. They'll use surrogates to raise questions about Michelle Obama's statements. They'll take every mis-step, like the Samantha Power comment, and amplify it. They'll wheel out the tired "we're the victims" canard, like they did by comparing Obama's scrupulous comments about her secrecy to Ken Starrr.
They'll keep hurling all those kitchen sinks at him that they promised to throw. And with Harold Ickes at his in-fighting, knife-fighting best, the super-delegates will start to get nervous at the prospect of the Republicans roughing-up Obama in the general election.
I believe his supporters are ready for him to take this step, and that any undecided, fence-sitters will recognize that he has no choice.
Here are the five commercials that I'd like to see on the air. Let the un-vetting begin.
Commercial #1: February 26th
Strategy: If Senator Clinton wants to run on her experience, her proximity to power, and the Clinton foreign policy record, well, then she has to live with the whole story.
OPEN ON FILE FOOTAGE OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER TRUCK BOMBING. CHAOTIC SCENES OF RESCUE, OF POLICE ACTION, OF DESTRUCTION. INTERCUT TO NEWSPAPER HEADLINES.
VO: ANNCR
You're not looking at September 11th, 2001.
You're looking at February 26th, 1993.
It was first jidhadist attack on the World Trade Center.
Were we prepared? How did we respond?
The bi-partisan Report of the 9/11 Commission said we didn't do enough before...or after.
The report slammed our "outdated technology" and "paper watchlists."
CUT TO TITLE CARD:
Outdated technology. Paper watchlists.
VO: CON'T
They criticized the "FBI's systems as woefully outdated.'
CUT TO TITLE CARD
"Woefully outdated."
And non-partisan commission members concluded:
"We believe the 9/11 attacks revealed four kinds of failures: in imagination, policy, capablities
and management."
Whose watch did these failures happen on? Well, you decide.
President Bill Clinton was in office 8 full years before 9/11.
Now, Senator Hillary Clinton wants your vote based on her years in the White House.
Is it fair to bring this up? We think so.
After all, that's the experience she's running on.
SUPER: OBAMA LOGO
Commercial #2: Tax Returns
Strategy: Use her stonewalling on tax returns to tap into the latent perception that Senator Clinton is fundamentally secretive, lacking in transparency, and duplicitous.
OFF-CAMERA HAND COMES INTO FRAME AND PUTS INCOME TAX RETURN ON DESK. CUT TIGHT TO REVEAL "RONALD AND NANCY REAGAN'S" NAME ON TAX FILING.
VO: Since Watergate, every Democratic and Republican presidential candidate except two have released their tax returns.
CUT TO ONE RETURN AFTER ANOTHER COMING ONTO THE DESK. MONDALE, DOLE, GORE, DUKAKIS, ETC.
Candidates who profoundly disagreed on the issues, agreed that Americans have a right to know the finances of our next president.
Where their income came from.
What they invested in.
The whole picture. Fully and transparently.
Senator Barack Obama released his tax return in 2006.
WE SEE HIS TAX RETURN HIT THE TABLE WITH A COMFORTING THUD.
As for Senator Clinton...
CUT TO NEWSPAPER ARTICLE HEADLINE "SENATOR CLINTON WON'T RELEASE TAXES"
...well, she absolutely refuses to release hers.
We don't know why she's being so secretive.
But if you don't want people to think you're hiding something, there's a simple solution.
Stop hiding it.
Oh, one more thing.
We told you there's only other presidential candidate since Watergate who refused to release his tax returns.
CUT TO HEADLINE ABOUT BILL CLINTON NOT RELEASING HIS TAX RETURN.
Runs in the family.
SUPER: OBAMA LOGO
COMMERCIAL #3: Bernstein
Strategy: Allow voters to recognize that questions about her character and authenticity are not limited to the right wing attack machine; sober and serious people raise the same deep and primal concerns.
"One of the real problems Hillary has had is a difficult relationship to the truth."
Bernstein says...
CUT TO TITLE CARD AS VO CONTINUES
"This is a woman who's led a camouflaged life and continues to..."
And he calls her "inauthentic."
CUT TO TITLE CARD THAT READS "INAUTHENTIC."
This isn't the right-wing attack machine talking.
This is Carl Bernstein. Think about that.
SUPER: OBAMA LOGO
Commercial #4: Clinton Health Care
Strategy: Millions of voters are too young to remember her health care fiasco. Others might have lived through it, but it has faded into the haze of memory. Obama needs to reconstruct that failure as a trigger to ignite the latent negative perceptions of Senator Clinton.
OPEN ON FILE FOOTAGE OF HILLARY CLINTON TESTIFYING BEFORE CONGRESS ON HER
HEALTH CARE PLAN, IN FULL ARROGANCE AND STRIDENCY MODE.
VO: If you're 25 now, you were ten years old the last time Hillary Clinton had her chance to fix our health care system.
So as a public service, we'd like to remind you what happened.
CUT TO MONTAGE OF HEADLINES THAT COMMUNICATE THE DEBACLE, INCLUDING "CLINTON SUED FOR KEEPING MEETINGS SECRET."
In 1993, President Clinton decided to put his wife in charge of health-care reform.
Hillary Clinton created a bureaucracy of more than 600 people...
And at the end of the day she produced a 1,300 page report...
CUT TO THE ABSURDLY THICK DOCUMENT LANDING ON A TABLETOP.
...that was such a mess, it even failed to win the support of the Democrats who controlled Congress.
It became a symbol of how NOT to be effective, how NOT to get things done in Washington.
After that, health care became so controversial that no politician would touch it.
CUT TO HEADLINE THAT SAYS "CLINTON FAILURE MAKES HEALTH CARE THE THIRD-RAIL OF POLITICS"
Result: we still have 14 million people who aren't covered.
If that's what Hillary Clinton means by experience, we say that's an experience America shouldn't have to live through again.
SUPER: OBAMA LOGO
Commercial #5: Do anything
Strategy: Tap into the perception that Senator Clinton will stop at nothing to get elected by providing incontrovertible supporting evidence
Title & VO:
Would Hillary Clinton do anything to get elected?
CUT TO SHOT OF PAMPHLET SHE DISTRIBUTED IN NEW HAMPSHIRE THAT MIS-REPRESENTED OBAMA'S ABORTION-RIGHTS RECORD .
MOVE IN ON PICTURE OF OBAMA AND THE HEADLINE "UNWILLING TO TAKE A STAND ON CHOICE."
VO: In New Hampshire she spread the lie that Senator Obama was "unwilling to take a stand on choice" because of votes he made in the Illinois legislature.
But the Illinois branch of Planned Parenthood gave him a 100 percent pro-choice voting record.
CUT TO NEWSPAPER HEADLINE CONFIRMING THE STATEMENT.
VO: She ran a fear-mongering commercial that questioned his ability to lead the country...
CUT TO RED PHONE COMMERCIAL
...insulting the judgment of the 13 million people who have voted for him.
Her campaign has mocked Obama supporters for being naive.
CUT TO BILL CLINTON "FAIRY TALE" COMMENT
...and has even injected race into the campaign.
CUT TO BILL CLINTON'S JESSE JACKSON COMMENT
CUT TO NAFTA HEADLINES
She bashes Nafta in Ohio, but supported it when her husband pushed it through.
We believe that the kind of campaign you run tells us the kind of person you are. And the kind of president you'll be.
SUPER: OBAMA LOGO