GOP to voters: Be afraid, be very afraid
The Republican presidential contenders are engaged in a televised scaring contest, complete with explosions and sound effects, on the issue of national security. Check under your bed.By Mike Madden
Jan. 7, 2008 | MANCHESTER, N.H. -- First, an enormous orange fireball booms onto the screen. The camera shakes and a crowd runs for cover. Next, sirens wail, as an abandoned car explodes. Paramedics tote bodies away from another blast. Militants raise their AK-47s and parade across the desert, their faces masked.
What's the next image that fills the screen, in a Web commercial by John McCain that really puts the "attack" in "attack ad"? Mitt Romney's face, above a quote from a Hannity & Colmes appearance where Romney said "a president is not a foreign policy expert."
The closer the New Hampshire primary gets, it seems, the more terrified the Republican presidential candidates want you to be. That way, you'll vote for the guy who scared you the worst, and not that guy who's going to preside over your death at the hands of jihadists. McCain, who wants to shift the conversation away from immigration and onto foreign policy and security issues, has Web ads like "Experience." Rudy Giuliani -- who never misses a chance to remind voters about 9/11 -- is airing a TV commercial in New Hampshire called "Ready" that is even more alarming than McCain's "Experience." Released just days after Bhutto's murder, it features footage of the late Pakistani leader, accompanied by a soundtrack of Middle Eastern music. "Hate without boundaries," intones a narrator. "A people perverted ... A nuclear power in chaos." Mike Huckabee -- no foreign policy maven -- answered a press conference question about immigration by invoking the specter of Pakistanis with "shoulder-fired missiles" sneaking across the U.S.-Mexico border. Fred Thompson got into the act at Saturday night's ABC News/Facebook/WMUR debate, proving that even campaigns that don't have the money to scare people with ads can still try other methods. "We could be attacked with a biological weapon and not even know it for a long period of time," Thompson told viewers matter-of-factly. (Now enjoy your late local news.)
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