Adwatch: Clinton ad blames Bush for economy

[Ron Burgundy]

AP - TITLE: "Responsibility"

LENGTH: 30 seconds.

AIRING: South Dakota.

SCRIPT: Clinton: "We are $9 trillion in debt."

Announcer: "George Bush's spending has sent the economy into a tailspin and put Social Security in jeopardy."

Clinton: "We borrow money from the Chinese to buy oil from the Saudis."

Announcer: "Hillary Clinton will stop spending money America doesn't have. She'll end $55 billion in giveaways to corporate special interests, reduce the deficit and protect Social Security."

Clinton: "I will get us back to fiscal responsibility. I'm Hillary Clinton and I approved this message."

KEY IMAGES: Clinton addresses a crowd as a headline from a 2004 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial appears on the screen: "Deeper in debt; Bush budget policy is painting the nation red." The ad displays video clips of Clinton with different voters — a montage of her target audience. There's a mother with a baby, a father with a child, a blue-collar worker, young people and an elderly woman. The images of her speaking at a rally show an audience consisting predominantly of women. As the ad ends, the camera focuses on a sign in the crowd: "Hillary will fight for us."

ANALYSIS: This ad and a 60-second radio ad are appearing one week before the South Dakota primary. Three contests are left in the competition for the Democratic presidential nomination — Puerto Rico on Sunday and South Dakota and Montana on Tuesday. Clinton is favored in Puerto Rico; Obama is favored in Tuesday's primaries.

South Dakota is not an expensive media state, so a modest amount of money can reach a large audience. The ads serve as a reminder to her supporters and donors and to the superdelegates who will vote for the eventual nominee that Clinton has not given up. Obama and Clinton are running television ads in Puerto Rico and South Dakota. Only Obama has television ads in Montana.

Clinton's message amounts to a sum of economic fears. She blames Bush for deficit spending (much of it for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan), raises worries about the fate of Social Security, invokes the government's debt and reminds viewers of reliance on foreign oil. Saudi Arabia is the second largest source of U.S. crude oil imports, behind Canada. And China is a major holder of the government's debt, such as U.S. Treasury securities.

The link between government spending and economic health is one economists will debate. Indeed, the Democratic-controlled Congress and President Bush in February approved a $168 billion stimulus package to boost the economy. But Democrats have argued that resources spent in Iraq could have been better spent domestically.

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Analysis by Jim Kuhnhenn

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080527/ap_on_el_pr/clinton_adwatch [link]