Obama Says Clinton Ad Plays on Fears

[RedEarth]

HOUSTON (AP) - Democrat Barack Obama accused rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday of trying to "play on people's fears to scare up votes" with a television ad showing sleeping children and asking who would be more qualified to answer a national security emergency call at 3 a.m.

"The question is not about picking up the phone. The question is: What kind of judgment will you make when you answer?" Obama said as he campaigned in Texas ahead of crucial contests here and in Ohio on Tuesday.

"We've had a red phone moment. It was the decision to invade Iraq. And Senator Clinton gave the wrong answer. George Bush gave the wrong answer. John McCain gave the wrong answer," Obama said.

...........

To the sound of a ringing phone, the Clinton ad shows children sleeping at night and a mother checking on a child as an announcer says a phone is ringing in the White House and something has happened in the world. It ends with an image of Clinton on the telephone as the announcer asks, "It's 3 a.m. and your children are safely asleep. Who do you want answering the phone?"

Obama responded: "We've seen these ads before. They're the kind that play on peoples' fears to scare up votes. Well, it won't work this time."

http://apnews.myway.com//article/20080229/D8V47EUO0.html

........video of the ad........

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/02/hillary_ad_who_do_you_want_ans.php

[ingac70]

1. Awesome answer by Obama. n/t.

[stillcool]

2. Now that Mark Penn/Charlie Black thing...

is making more sense.

**Charles R. "Charlie" Black, Jr., Chairman of BKSH & Associates, is "recognized as one of the nation's leading public affairs professionals.
**"BKSH is the name of leading-edge government relations consultancy for the 21st century. Created by the world's largest communications agency, Burson-Marsteller, it enables clients to mount US, pan-European and transatlantic campaigns. Wherever in the world BKSH operates, clients can rely on the same commitment: the promise of efficiency, effectiveness and excellence," the company boasts on its website.
---Charles Black is a listed as a lobbyist representing the Lincoln Group.

**Burson-Marsteller is the world's fifth largest PR company (Source: Council of PR Firms, 2002) and part of the WPP Group. According to a 2004 profile in The Hill, a Washington, DC newspaper, "This multinational PR behemoth has an active public-affairs practice led by Richard Mintz, who ran the media shop at the Department of Transportation during the Clinton administration. He also served as staff director for Hillary Clinton during the 1992 campaign. B-M has won awards recently for its work for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the "No on Proposition 54" campaign in California. Its public-affairs practice is bolstered by its affiliation with Direct Impact (grassroots marketing) and BKSH & Associates (lobbying)." <1>

**In May, 2007, the Nation magazine ran an article about the relationship between Burson-Marsteller's top executive world-wide, Mark Penn, and Hillary Clinton. "As Hillary Clinton charges toward the Democratic nomination for President, her campaign has a coterie of influential advisers. ... But perhaps the most important figure in the campaign is her pollster and chief strategist, Mark Penn, a combative workaholic. ... Yet Penn is no ordinary pollster. Beyond his connections to the Clintons, he not only polls for America's biggest companies but also runs one of the world's premier PR agencies ." <2>

**Burson-Marsteller has been hired by the two firms representing PMC Blackwater USA, McDermott Will & Emery and Crowell & Moring, to help with the account. <19>

**According to PRWeek, Burson subsidiary, BKSH & Associates, was hired through an internal connection at Blackwater to help with Erik Prince's October 2, 2007 testimony to Congress and that this "temporary engagement has ended".

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Charles_R._Black%2C_Jr