Obama had a pretty bad week leading up to the voting last night (the NAFTA/Canada imbroglio, Reszko's trial starting, Hillary being on Saturday Night Live and the Daily Show [and on offense the whole time it seemed like]). Then there was the "red phone" ad. I voted for Obama on Tsumani Tuesday, but I was not all that impressed with his response to that ad.
I agree with the Chicago Tribune which said the following in an editorial today:
Clinton's so-called "3 a.m. ad" synthesized the knock on Obama that he hasn't effectively blunted. With a red phone ringing, the better to evoke an international crisis, a voice says, "It's 3 a.m. and your children are safely asleep. Who do you want answering the phone?" The insinuation: You don't want some amateur whose idea of a tough decision is where to have dinner in Springfield. Obama's campaign retorted - lamely, we thought - that Clinton's vote to authorize war in Iraq proved she can't be trusted in a crisis. The smarter response would have been for Obama to acknowledge that-just like Hillary Clinton and John McCain-he's never taken one of those calls. What matters, he then could explain, is whether our next president has the courage and the judgment to make whatever urgent move that 3 a.m. call demands. Without having to ask his spouse for advice.
If people think the ad Hillary ran was bad, if Obama gets the nomination, wait and see what kind of ads McCain, the GOP and the right wing 527s will run in a similar vein - as their whole campaign against Obama will be based on (and has to be) arguing that McCain is better prepared to be commander in chief or Obama is not prepared at all. If Obama can't come up with an effective counter to Hillary's ad, then he probably won't be able to knock Hillary out before the convention and he probably will have a tough time with McCain in the fall. On the other hand, if Obama can come up with an effective response to the 3 a.m. ad, then he should be able to be more effective against Hillary and should be able to stand his ground against McCain.
I'd rather know now whether Obama has an effective counter to the 3 a.m. ad rather than find out, after he gets the nomination, that he really has no effective response. As I can't imagine Hillary is going to drop this line of attack before Pennsylvania, it will be good for the Democratic Party to see if Obama can effectively address this issue over the next 6 weeks so that we know he will be able to stand up the the GOP attack machine in the fall and, therefore, deserve the nomination.