NationalJournal.com's Ad Spotlight

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Pre-Emptive Strike In The Twin Cities

Filed under John McCain
Posted at 10:08 PM
Click here to watch "Home."

The South Carolina Republican Party wants viewers in the Twin Cities to know that Barack Obama failed to mention one "home" of John McCain's in his attacks on the Arizona senator and his multiple houses.

"Home" highlights McCain's captivity in a Vietnamese prison camp. "During a combat mission over Vietnam, John McCain was shot down and severely injured. John McCain's new home for the next five and half years will be an enemy prison cell," an announcer says.

The South Carolina GOP, which will run the ad through the Republican convention next week, is aiming to take some thunder away from the expected Democratic attacks. The spot shows black-and-white photos of the "Hanoi Hilton" POW camp -- prison bars, empty rooms and other desolate images -- when an announcer says: "This is where John McCain was starved, beaten, tortured and maimed for life. So the next time Barack Obama talks about one of John McCain's homes, remember this one."

The ad echoes McCain's response to Obama's attack on his housing flub, which was to cite his time as a POW. Appearing on "The Tonight Show" on Monday, McCain told Jay Leno, "I spent five and a half years in a prison cell, without -- I didn’t have a house, I didn’t have a kitchen table, I didn’t have a table, I didn’t have a chair." Still, some critics raise the issue that the Republican’s camp is making a little too much of his military history.