Yeah, they should have contrasted the children sleeping soundly at night with the adults being restless in bed with anxiety, only to get up, go to the kitchen table, and look at that ballooning mortgage bill one last time.

After watching the ad, I think the 3 a.m. theme is not about what is happening at night.  Think of it as "It's 3 a.m. in America."  Compare it Regan:

www.youtube.com/watch

Here's my suggestion for a counter ad:

"It's noon and the Middle East is in turmoil.  You know they're seven hours ahead of us, right?  And where is Hillary Clinton?  Asleep, because she spent all night on the phone gabbing about the mortgage crisis.

John McCain didn't oversleep, because he woke up at 4 am, 5 am and 6 am in order to urinate.

'I'm John McCain, and I'll approve this message as soon as I get out of the bathroom... damned prostate.'"

Upcoming Clinton ads:

"It's 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep. But there's a phone ringing in the White House, and this time the crisis is Agricultural. There's a drought in ..."

"It's 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep. But there's a phone ringing in the White House, and this time the crisis is Global Warming. CO2 levels will increase by..."

"It's 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep. But there's a phone ringing in the White House, and this time the crisis is Monetary Policy. The Fed is considering lower..."

"It's 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep. But there's a phone ringing in the White House, and this time the crisis is Diplomatic. The Japanese Prime Minister is coming for a State Dinner and it turns out he doesn't like Radicchio..."

“It's 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep. But there's a phone ringing in the White House, and this time the crisis is Cultural. Keanu Reeves has somehow been signed to play the lead role in another movie...”

“It's 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep. But there's a phone ringing in the White House, and this time the crisis is Televison. There’s nothing on but infomercials and Joe in Cincinnati can’t sleep...”

The 3 a.m. phone call with respect to national security seemed sort of shaky to me to begin with because the important decisions are generally not made on the spot.  Still, at least it fit in with popular perception of the job (hey, it happens all the time on 24).   But the economy?  What tough economic decisions have to be made at 3 a.m.? Have banks started forclosing in the middle of the night?  It seems like a parody of the logic implicit in the original ad.

I pretty much agree with your assessment.  Good that she raised the issue, good that she went after McCain, but the ad itself is incoherent.

The narrative of this ad is an absolute mess. It's 3 a.m., and someone is calling the president because of the economy? I don't think you have to be a sophisticated follower of national politics to understand that that image right there is complete bullshit. Unless the Treasure Department has just realized that the U.S. government will unexpectedly hit its debt ceiling and start defaulting on treasury bonds by noon, the scenario is ridiculous on its face, to the point where I would expect any reasonable person to question whether Hillary knows what the heck the president's job is.

Then we get the line, "John McCain just announced ..." Just? Within the narrative, remember, it's 3 a.m., so apparently John McCain made his announcement at 2:45 a.m. So McCain is on top of the news and making decisions, while Hillary is waiting around for the phone to ring.

And then the ad ends with Hillary, on the phone, her hair perfect as a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's, and she smiles and kind of chuckles. Because nothing inspires confidence like the image of the president being awaken by grave news that threatens the very survival of the republic ... and finding the situation amusing. Debt, foreclosure, economic catastrophe, it is to laugh.

All in all, a terrible ad that almost reaches the level of self-parody. Almost makes it seem like good news that Hillary can't really afford to run this ad. Maybe by the time she's raised some more cash, her team will have come up with a better spot than this mess.

Doesn't she ever sleep?

That last frame, I was expecting, I'm Margaret Spellings and I approve this message.

Well, it didn't take the Onion long:

www.theonion.com/.../hillary_receives_3_a_m_phone

Lots of shrimp.

"First, kudos to Clinton for going after John McCain."

Chris, your pro-Obama bias is killing me!

I get the impression that the production people are thinking of the "It's 3 a.m." motif as a kind of popularly understood shorthand -- by now it's taken on metaphorical status so people don't start asking plot-related questions of the type you guys have been raising.

I think what they are hoping for over the medium term is to capture the "3 a.m." spot in the imagination, so that Hillary gradually gets associated with being always alert, being ready for unexpected challenges, and so on.

McCain could suffer from this angle of attack, of course, not because the narrative is screwy here, but because the deeper implication is that he's a bit too old to be up and in full command of his faculties in the middle of the night.

Again, the "real" world doesn't matter so much here.

This new ad is incredible. I foresee infamy.

So much of this campaign--any campaign--dwells on the banality of pragmatism. (Or is it the pragmatism of banality?)

There is much to recommend "Pulp Fiction" but I like the girl and the guy dancing to Chuck Berry. Something about dancing: it's so impractical. Just a dance. The dance. You say: plot device. I say: think less.

What should people be doing at 3 a.m.? Making love, drinking coffee in an Edward Hopper diner, wrestling with doubt, finding Jupiter's moons, throwing pennies at a waitress' window, feeding stray cats, reading box scores, querying eternity. Or, in a perfect world, dancing.

Or sleeping. I have been reading a bit about sleep. As one researcher noted, it must be important, given that a sleeping creature is especially vulnerable to predation and other disasters. And yet evolution preserves it, and indeed sleep pervades the animal kingdom.

If all these other critters are either asleep or allowing their minds to dance (or both), why must people awake at 3 a.m. be pragmatic? Why emphasize this in one's campaign ad? Yeah, somebody's gotta do it--but is this a reason to vote for someone?

Vote for me--I'm your algebra homework! Vote for me--and change your oil every 6,000 miles! Vote for me--colonoscopy appointment, tomorrow, 8 a.m.!

Some say these ads work because they evoke fear. I say they work because they evoke depression, a condition many folks think they possess and--Goddess forbid--deserve. See them trudging along, like extras in a Soviet propaganda film, saving...something, anything. The planet, maybe. Sleep deprived, sex deprived, dance deprived, stray cat deprived--wary, wary of terrorists, wary of interest rates, but wary most of all of the few, the proud: the happy people.

Without eternal vigilance, Joe Bob said, sarcastically...

[yawn]

It's 3 am and Hillary Clinton can't sleep.  She's tried Ambien and Benedryl and NyQuil and Halcion and nothing works. What's wrong with the pharmaceutical industry in America?  Why can't they make something that will shut Hillary up for a few hours?  Well, they do, and it's called Versed, but Hillary can't get it because it's a prescription drug and none of her doctors will prescribe it.  What's wrong with the medical profession in America?  It's 3 am and Hillary Clinton can't sleep and the medical profession won't let her.  They have a lot to answer for, and when she's queen, by God, they will.  

"And then the ad ends with Hillary, on the phone, her hair perfect as a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's . . . . "  And the hits keep coming, Rhubes. Hilarious.  By the way, one of my favorite lines ever.  

Why do they call this poor woman at 3AM for a domestic financial crisis?  The banks aren't working at that hour.

Actually, the fact that those children we see are black

might be significant, given the way many of us understood

the original 3am ad. This too is incoherent or subliminal.

It's ad agency psychological cleverness that's just beyond most of us.

Somebody is just too clever, and is straining at it, really straining.

yerubal, I don't think Mrs. Clinton has an ad agency.  If she does, it's a pretty lame one.  A good agency would never be cranking out crap like this.  And the joke is, it looks like they were trying to get away with not having to come up with a new idea.  They simply rejiggered their old (bad) idea.

Hm.  It may turn out to be a good idea, for the reasons mentioned above.  This (general) election may go into history as "the 3 a.m. phone call election"

I loved Pulp fiction for glorifying dancing.

And didn't Clinton try to say she was sleep deprived when she made the "misstatement"? It's 3am and you should be in bed.

Not misstatement, misspoke. That was it.

Hillary Clinton released another "3 a.m." spot yesterday, this one advertising her ability to handle the economic crisis — and hitting John McCain for not advocating more action.

no, this requires a new word. A misspakement.

The criticism about the ad's lack of "visula integrity" is correct.  I, too, was confused about the movement back-and-forth between images of sleeping children and adults dealing with bills in daylight.  That problem can be fixed with images of harried adults dealing with bills late at night combined with shadowy shots of  "must sell now, price reduced" signs outside the homes, shots of worried moms and dads checking in on their kids and returning to the bills, etc.  Or another approach:  "It's 3 PM and the phone is ringing in the White House, but no one is answering."  Keep the shot of the older guy (who bears a slight resemblance to McCain) subbornly refusing  to pick up the phone.  Have an aide pop in and say, Mr. President, "the phone is ringing."  He ignores the aide and the phone keeps ringing.  That kind of thing.

bcbaird:

Thanks  - that post made a rough day at work wothwhile.  i'm home, and rather than spew coffee all over the monitor it was bourbon.  

'I'm John McCain, and I'll approve this message as soon as I get out of the bathroom... damned prostate.'"

Beautiful.

Has anybody tried calling the White House?  I don't think Hillary answers.  I don't think George Bush answers.  I think an operator.  Or maybe just a robot.