Here is the transcript of the Obama ad [source: CNN and personal transcript]:
"It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep, but there’s a phone ringing in the White House. Something’s happening in the world. When that call gets answered, shouldn’t the president be the one – the only one – who had judgment and courage to oppose the Iraq war from the start. Who understood the real threat to America was al-Qaeda, in Afghanistan, not Iraq. Who led the effort to secure loose nuclear weapons around the globe. In a dangerous world, it’s judgment that matters"
Before discussing the persuasive elements in this ad, I want to point out something that struck me: the similarity of the ads. In fact, while researching for this entry, I had the ads playing in the background and at times, I could not tell the difference between the ads. I am quite certain that some of the footage from Clinton ad was copied and used in the Obama ad.
Similarity Between Ads
- Text
- Obama: "It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep, but there’s a phone ringing in the White House"
- Clinton: "It's 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep, but there's a phone in the White House and it's ringing."
- Images
(Image from Clinton Ad)
(Image from Obama Ad)
(Image from Clinton ad)
(Image from Obama Ad)
Why Ad is Persuasive
- The subject of the debate is changed from experience to judgment ("In a dangerous world, it’s judgment that matters") and the Iraq War is central.
- The ad quotes from outside sources to provide an aura of authority whereas the Clinton ad simply makes claims and provides no substantiation
- The ad shows the White House lit up at night, giving the aura of the White House working at night. In contrast, Clinton's ad offers no such image.
- The ad directly attacks Senator Clinton's support of the Iraq War
- The ad was released so quickly that it prevented public opinion from forming in the mind of the electorate
2 comments:
I've never seen two ads so similar in a campaign. I wonder if the Clinton campaign has a copyright claim? The footage certainly looks the same to me. The narrators even are similar.
I agree that the Obama ad as the better of the two. It's interesting, since Clinton's claim has been that she has experience, yet her ad provides limited evidence of it, whereas the Obama ad does.
I think the copyright issue is quite interesting, especially in light of the flack Obama has taken for stealing speech lines from MA governor Deval Patrick.
I think Clinton's lack of evidence to support her claims only shows how pervasive her own belief in her aura of inevitability is. She just believes that if the media stopped going soft on Obama and she got a fair shake, people would see the light of day and flock to her.
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