Lessons of '84: Clinton Needs Obama Mistakes, Not Red Phone Ads
The blogosphere is buzzing about the new "It's Three AM" ad from Hillary Clinton. Brought to the airwaves by the same creator of Walter Mondale's famous 1984 "Red Phone" spot, Clinton's ad is similarly designed to raise doubts - and fears - about an inexperienced Barack Obama's readiness to handle a national security crisis. Sadly for Clinton, the lesson learned from Mondale's comeback victory over Gary Hart isn't the need for terrifying commercials, but instead the good fortune of crippling mistakes by her challenger.
As I wrote two weeks ago, in the run-up to the March 4 contests in Texas and Ohio Hillary Clinton's campaign eerily resembles that of Walter Mondale, another dazed and on-the-ropes former frontrunner.
Like Clinton, Vice President Mondale was the overwhelming national leader and consensus party choice heading into the primaries. But when Gary Hart, and not John Glenn, scored a surprising second place finish in Iowa, a media wave washed over Mondale. Hart enjoyed a 30 point swing in New Hampshire in a week, easily winning the Granite State primary and the ensuing Maine caucus. Heading into the first Super Tuesday contests in Georgia, Massachusetts and seven other states on March 13, 1984, Mondale's frontrunner campaign was on the verge of oblivion.
Facing a younger opponent promising a "new generation of leadership" transcending special interests, Mondale urgently needed a tactic to deflate Hart and his campaign of "new ideas." And that came just before the Georgia primary. During a debate in Atlanta, Mondale appropriated the slogan from a popular Wendy's ad and famously mocked Hart:
"When I hear your new ideas, I'm reminded of that ad: 'Where's the beef?'"
Mondale went on to narrowly win Georgia, one of two key Super Tuesday victories that the media declared kept him in the race. Which is when the Mondale camp unveiled the "Red Phone" ad in the run-up to the critical Illinois primary the following week.
As it turned out, Mondale won the Illinois contest, but not because of his ad, but one of Gary Hart's . (Hart, after all, was a 10-year veteran of the U.S. Senate and a leader in military reform.) No, Mondale's victory in Illinois resulted instead from catastrophic missteps by the Hart campaign.
Seeking to build on its early lead, Hart's team began running a negative ad linking Mondale to the Chicago Daley machine figure, "Fast Eddie" Vrdolyak. But after taking heat for airing an attack spot against the Vrdolyak (who had til that time done little to help Mondale), Hart pledged to stop running the ad. Inexplicably, the ad continued to run, making Hart seem both disorganized and hypocritical and disorganized. In a matter of days, Hart's 12 point lead evaporated and Mondale walked away with a narrow win.
Things went from bad to worse in the ensuing New York primary. In his position papers, Hart had declared he would not move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. But speaking to a Jewish group in the Empire State, Hart promised just that. For a candidate who claimed to fight special interests in the name of the national interest, the impact of the blatant pandering was devastating. Hart lost to Mondale by 20%, just barely beating Jesse Jackson for second place. His woes continued in Pennsylvania.
But the campaign was not over. Hart battled back, winning 7 of the next 11 contests. Those wins in April and May 1984 included surprise victories in Indiana and Ohio, two strong union states expected to go to Mondale. With victories in the simultaneous June primaries in California and New Jersey, Hart could deny Mondale a first ballot nomination at the convention in San Francisco.
Which is when the Hart gaffe machine resurfaced one final time. Locked in a tight contest in New Jersey, Hart and his wife Lee spoke with reporters at a Los Angeles fundraiser. In one moment of carelessness, Hart went from closing fast on Mondale in the Garden State to a 15 point blowout a week later. As Time recalled:
In a classic campaign boner, he exposed his sarcastic side at a fund raiser in Los Angeles. The "bad news," he told a well-heeled audience standing on the lawn of a Bel Air mansion, is that he has to campaign apart from his wife Lee. "The good news for her is that she campaigns in California while I campaign in New Jersey." When Mrs. Hart interjected, "I got to hold a koala bear," Hart sniggered, "I won't tell you what I got to hold: samples from a toxic-waste dump."
(Full disclosure: I not only worked for Gary Hart in 1984, but was at the photo-op at the toxic waste dump in question. While hanging out at the Jersey shore the next summer, I was harangued by a woman who saw my "Gary Hart for President" t-shirt. "I hate him," she said, "because he insulted our state.")
The rest, as they say, is history. Walter Mondale went on to a first ballot victory at the Democratic Convention.
But as the Clinton camp should be careful to remember, he got off the mat not because of an ad that sounded like something from the Republican playbook. Walter Mondale needed an awful lot of help from Gary Hart. Unfortunately for Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama does not seem similarly willing to oblige.
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Oh God. Not another "we're gonna party like it's 1984" piece...
Posted by Chris on February 29, 2008 3:06 PM