USA TODAY - Clinton aims new '3 a.m.' ad at McCain

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Now it's Republican John McCain who is in the cross hairs of a Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign ad that asks voters who they want to be answering the White House phone at 3 a.m.:



The text:

Announcer: 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 economic. Home foreclosures mounting, markets teetering.

John McCain just said the government shouldn't take any real action on the housing crisis, he'd let the phone keep ringing.

Hillary Clinton has a plan to protect our homes, create jobs.

It's 3 a.m., time for a president who's ready.

This is, of course, a re-working of an ad that Clinton aimed at Democratic rival Barack Obama before the crucial Texas primary on March 4.

Update at 5:30 p.m. ET: McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds responds with this e-mailed statement: "John McCain is ready to lead with a pro-growth economic plan to lower taxes, cut government spending, empower America's entrepreneurs and get our economy back on track. Americans can't afford the Democrats' liberal agenda to raise taxes, nationalize health care, cut off trade and crush the economy under big government."

Update at 4 p.m. ET: Asked what experience Clinton has at handling economic crises, Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson just said on a conference call with reporters that "unless you're president, you don't have a single moment like that." The point the senator is trying to make, he said, is that she "understands markets" and has "a lifetime of experience both inside and outside the White House."

Pressed again to say whether Clinton has handled any crisis similar to what the ad discusses, Wolfson pointed to efforts the senator made to "make sure New York had the resources" it needed after the 9/11 attacks. "That was obviously a moment of significant need" when economic and other assistance was needed to help New York City recovery, he said.

Update at 3:45 p.m. ET: The Clinton campaign conference call continues, and chief strategist Mark Penn just said the new ad opens "perhaps what could be one of the most significant arguments of the campaign" -- what to do about the weak economy and especially the housing and foreclosure crises.

Update at 3:40 p.m. ET: On a conference call that's underway right now, Clinton campaign strategist Mark Penn said the ad is going on the air in Pennsylvania, where there's a presidential primary on April 22. "This ad is consistent with the important debate on who would be best to manage the economy," Penn said.

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