Well, she's openly encouragaing this by putting her name in for nomination. I'm sure she's appreciative of McCain and looking to run against his Presidency in 2012.

It seems a smart move by McCain to exploit divisions that she has done her best to foment.

Actually, this is silly. Voters will see through it, and it sets up an easy set of ripostes by HRC.

Don't know about the first part, and the ripostes will only matter if they eventuate at all and if they are viewed as sincere, unlike most things she says in "support" of Obama.

Good God what a spastic campaign

I think this is proof that some of the Clintonian dissent that we see here and around the web is from Republican trolls. No, not all of it, I am not calling all Clinton supporters trolls. But these are going to be the trollish talking points throughout the convention. They would love to create a divided convention and say "see, he can't even unite his own party, how is he going to unite the country?"

I am waiting for the Clinton response.

According to Rasmussen's poll yesterday, among unaffiliated/independent voters (who will decide the election), 25% are more likely to vote for Obama because of the Biden pick and 33% are less likely to do so.

Just found out that Biden has an "F" rating from the NRA and is considered an archenemy of that organization. Obama also has an "F" rating from the gun rights group who is credited as a key factor (along with Nader and Lieberman) in costing Gore an electoral vote win in 2000.

New ABC\/Washington Post poll today, Obama 49 McCain 45. The narrative in the media should be now, McCain, DESPARATE to close the gap prior to the convention, tries to casue a rift amongst the Dems.

It's labeled "Passed Over". "The One" "Passed Over" Hillary Clinton. Religious innuendo maybe?

I guess this means that McCain has to pick Romney to respect his FOUR MILLION VOTES!

Progressive women are NOT going to vote for John McCain. They know what the next Supreme Court appointments mean for women and they know that a belligerent hot head in the White House would put their children in danger.

Whatever happened to conservatives? As I recall they believed in a small federal government and avoided foreign entanglements. The GOP is the poster child for war, lobbyists, graft, and the manipulation of one issue religious leaders. Iraq and Afghanistan are both disasters, but the GOP wants more war!

Interestingly Iraq wants us gone and is very friendly with Iran. The Sunni population of Iraq has to be paid by the US to keep order because the Shia will not pay for policing in the Sunni communities and would just as soon kill all of them. Al Maliki, et al are only interested in total domination of the non-Shia population and are NOT going to share the wealth or even pay their own way so long as our taxpayers will do it.

I would like to see Hillary Clinton saying in a very angry tone "shame on you John McCain" the way she did when she got angry in the primaries. I think only that will put this sort of thing down before the convention begins.

excellent point JennofArk.
I really just want to see her go on a tear. Isn't she supposed to be the consummate politician who knows what wins her points? Well if she can see the writing on the wall she better have her A (angry) game on.

More self-contradictory flailing from the McCain campaign. They have no message, no overall theme about what they can do for average Americans.

This ad contradicts both itself (it shows exactly why he didn't pick her) and yesterday's Biden ad. I'm starting to think that these guys aren't smart enough to pull off even a slime-only campaign.

The GOP will do and say anything to divide and conquer. However, when they say Obama is an empty suit, let's be clear, Obama Has experience, it is just not Washington experience and he has the Vision and inspiration to enable men to change and look forward unmired by the trappings of wealth and power which makes one a truly great leader of men!

Joe Biden is a man who is wise in foreign affairs, unlike John McCain, "who, despite the hype, doesn't seem to know as much about foreign affairs as they want us to believe!

McCain recently talked at length about problems on the "Iraq/Pakistan border" – the countries are a thousand miles apart. Asked how to deal with Darfur, he mused about "bringing pressure on the government of Somalia". Uh – it's Sudan, Senator McCain. And he keeps expressing his desire to build up US relations with Czechoslovakia, a country that hasn't existed for 15 years. "

Those of us who care deeply about the Truth need to debunk this notion that John McCain is so knowledegeable about foreign affairs, because it is another lie they want us to swallow.
Just because McCain spent five years (5) as a POW prisoner, does not make him an expert on foreign affairs, what it does make him an expert on is on how to survive as a prisoner. Let us not be fooled again, because saying its so, does not make it so. Saying Barack Obama does not have experience, does not make it so.

THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS!! FOR HILLARY!!!

That's a lucid breakdown. My first thought when I saw the ad was of the people you're calling group 3; they are actually trying to make a good decision, and they'll be able to see what a mockery this transparent ad makes of their emotions and their deeply-held convictions. If there are persuadable Hillary holdouts, this kind of patronizing use of her image can't very well endear McCain to them.

Stupid reply system. That was supposed to be a reply to the Missouri voter @ 9.33.

Using Hillary's attacks on Barack were totally expected and inevitable. In fact, she made most of these attacks AFTER being told she she should stop because she was only helping McCain. So it's really her responsibility to respond to this herself. Especially since the whole purpose of this ad is to keep her supporters pissed off at Obama.

So Hillary should make an ad looking into the camera and dismissing her earlier comments with the classic "stuff gets said during a campaign." Then she has to say if John McCain is elected he'll overturn Roe vs. Wade, stay in Iraq no matter what anyone says and give the richest people tax cuts so they can buy themselves even more houses. That's why she's for Barack Obama and NOT John McCain.

A not exactly stinging response to the ad from Hillaryland (via The Trail at WaPo):

Clinton spokesperson Kathleen Strand: "Hillary Clinton's support of Barack Obama is pretty clear," she said in an e-mail. "She has said repeatedly that Barack Obama and she share a commitment to changing the direction of the country, getting us out of Iraq, and expanding access to health care. John McCain doesn't. It's interesting how those remarks didn't make it into his ad."

The ad is simply a lame attempt to "divide and conquer." It's all they've got. Kristol was still bleating about Hillary this morning on Chris Wallace.

One might wonder how Hillary and her supporters who haven't turned the corner feel about being used, manipulated and exploited as pawns in the republican message machine. It's blatantly appealing to none other than their egos and desire for recognition.

That women are still marginalized to some degree in our society is an issue that needs persistent, not fanatical, attention. The intractability of the Hillary hangers-on is reminiscent of none other than Bush's "resolve." It's counterproductive not only to their cause, but to moving our country out of its morass.

God, some days my ability to spell just flies right out the window.

Jeopardize -

I can't wait for McCain's veep pick. None of his choices are any good and an easy commercial to make would contrast Mittens or whoever it is with Biden.

Don't let McMansion change the subject:

Keep on the housing gaffe. This is sticky stuff! And it stings -- he's angry and unable to laugh it off.

I'm lovin it. Keep up the attack!

Anybody know anything about the movie "W" coming out in October? Doesn't sound good for McCain, especially after Obama has connected McCain to Bush for months.

McCain needs to be running ads about himself and how he is different from Bush. These constant ad attacks on Obama are going to stop losing impact. They reach the people that have already decided to vote for McCain but the undecideds are going to stop turning off by it.

I wouldn't touch these adds with a ten foot pole if I was the Obama campaign. They are just trolling for a fight to get people to talk about it.

Unless a narrative begins to unfold such as the inexperience, which has been a focal point of McCain's camp, addressing this directly will only get the once news organizations, now T.V. tabloids, picking up and running with the discussion 4 more that one news cycle.

I think Obama's camp realizes they will dominate the news the next week or so with the Dem convention, and all the garbage McCain is throwing out, will be soon forgotten unless addressed directly.

I'd expect Obama to lay back into the McCain out of touch story which I think will have some legs. The "Seven" ad had just as many YouTube hits as the original "celebrity" ad in the same amount of time if that is a gauge for measuring how much of an affect it had on peoples curiosity.

On the VP Biden pick,,,,,,,, does anyone else find it noteworthy that we are not hearing a rerun of the 'Rome, rum, and revolution" buck and wing at an Irish Roman Catholic getting the nomination. Or hasn't McCain been able to remember it? Al Smith and JFK must be having a good laugh at the whole thing.

Can someone please tell CNN to stop crying about Hillary. All morning Blitzer, Susan Malveaux and Candy Crowly have been talking about how hillary has been dissed, how hillary supporters are pissed. I cant take it no more. They were actually talking about a divided convention. WTF? Have i been on another planet these last few days? Do they know something we dont?

I am done with CNN.

I haven't been on here in a long time but after seeing this ad.... i thought i had to say something....

I supported hillary clinton for president, which you can clearly see by looking at the name (hillaryclinton08).... however, when Obama won I had a change of heart and said i would vote for him but i've changed my mind again......... I think i'm going to have to vote for John McCain.... and here is why.

I don't like the fact that Barack Obama has over looked hillary clinton so many times and doesn't care about what her supporters are feeling or going threw..... He didn't even think about putting her on the ticket..... he chose someone that couldn't even come in 2nd, 3rd or 4th place during the primaries... he chose someone that is a liar, a person that said they didn't even want the vp position; but did say that they might would take it if they were running with John McCain.... he picked John McCain's friend.....wow.... and Obama makes me mad because during the primaries he said "i'm for change" yet he picked someone that has been in washington longer then Hillary Clinton and John McCain.

Obama is a liar and i'm not going to support him....

I don't like John McCain but i'm voting for him to show that Obama, should have picked Hillary Clinton..... she won the popular vote and only lost by 300 delegates..... she sure got more delegates and votes then Joe Biden.

GO JOHN McCAIN:)

The McCain ad is quite lame. The Obama campaign has laid out a packed campaign schedule for the months of September and October. And what Pawlenty and Romney? there is plenty of dirty on those two.

It would be hard for Hillary to respond considering everything in the ad is true.

What's this I hear about McCain choosing Condi Rice?

I know this is meant to stir those who are angry that Hillary is not on the ticket. For me his decision not to have her as VP was a wise decision and a aign that he really plans to win and 'be' president.

The idea that Hillary on the ticket was a guaranteed win is a myth.

Hillary voters don't need much to not vote for Barry but rather vote against him.

The truth hurts, Barry is an empty suit and Hillary Democrats will gladly vote for McCain. After Barry and "dial a dot Biden lose, the Clintonistas/we will take back our party for the angry far left latte losers and their socialist anti-American leader, Barry Hussein.

McCain/Clinton 2008
Clinton 2012

And when not reaching out to Hillary dead-enders with stunts like this he is smearing her in town halls calling Obama's healthcare plan "Hillarycare", and saying he fought against it then and blocked it and will fight against it now.

Also McCain likes to point out that he voted in support of the Democrat appointed Supreme Court justices when questioned in by Hillary dead-enders (cleverly using Carly Fiorina as his surrogate in this reach out), though when speaking at the Saddleback forum, sharply criticized the exact same Justices as ones he wouldn't have appointed.

in all fairness to mccain, this is an excellent ad...it is low and dirty, but HRC should have been more careful when going after a partisan!!!

hrc should be upset about this ad, but i dont think she is. if she values her political career, she better search for the venom she spewed on Obama to counter these attacks from Mccain...

some of hrc's supporters are truly on board, but some will never be, b/c it was never truly about hrc...hrc unleased the devil herself when she and ferraro made it ok for people not to vote for obama bc he is well not......fill in the blanks...

you reap what you sow...i still dont understand how putting her name on the ballot will unify the party...if anyone else had won this thing fair and square and he/she didnt look like obama, none of this foolishness would be going on..even if that candidate had even less experience than obama....all this ass-kissing for hrc's supporter is pure B.S. you either won it or you lost it...she lost it! biden has the so-called experience thaqt supposedly made bigoted america uncomfortable, yet still they complain that change has been compromised...keep in mind, they didn't buy into change in the beginning any way....

so the world is ok with obama, but his own fellow americans are not...once again, it is the world against the dumb americans!

Sorry, that should be what she should say on Tuesday.

This is just the GOP creating mischief. But, as long as its doing so provides a chance to put a Clinton in a bad light too many Obama are blinded to the danger such mischief offers.

In just the last week alone the media has been fed, and gleefully amplified, talking points from the GOP about how "the (evil, plotting, power mad) Clintons" have "taken over" the Convention (and made Obama look weak), how McCain is supposedly using lessons he "learned" from Clinton against Obama (thus excusing McCain's tactics while providing the media with another opportunity to trash Clinton), and now they are openly exploiting party divisions, and distracting from the campaign's real issues -- by exploiting the media's willingness to take up and amplify anything that gives them an excuse for bad mouthing a Clinton -- with this ad.

The GOP wouldn't be doing so if they didn't know that this provides them with some advantage in their campaign against Obama. How? By, among other things, detracting from and obscuring the message Obama's campaign hopes to put forward -- both positive messages in support of his campaign and negative messages aimed at the McCain campaign -- and by diminishing the Democratic brand.

What Obama and his surrogates need to do to counter this nonsense, and demonstrate unity, is to point out what the GOP is doing, show some outrage at the way these dedicated, competent and successful party leaders are constantly portrayed, and take the media to task for using these GOP talking points to distract from real issues.

Obama's branding has been brilliant, but, for the most part, niche, branding -- that affluent social liberals, especially the young, powerfully identify with (including those in the mainstream and political media), as well as African Americans. But Obama's support in the broader electorate is based, and, because of his limited personal resume, will continue to be based, more strongly in perceptions of the Democratic brand -- a brand that's most recent positive associations are based in the successes of the Clinton administration. Obama didn't tame an historic deficit and leave office with a projected budget surplus. Bill Clinton did. Obama doesn't have a record of supporting small business creation, job creation and over-seeing an economy in which working class wages saw real increases for the first time in decades. Bill Clinton does. Obama doesn't have a decades long record of demonstrated dedication to health care, protection of vulnerable children and the elderly, dedication to pay equity, family leave, etc. Hillary Clinton does. The party can't afford to let these values and successes be diminished. And Obama can't afford to run a campaign that continues to suggest, or fails to object when others suggest, that the most recent history of the party he leads contains nothing more than hypocrisy, corruption, power mad manipulation and failure. Destroying the Clinton brand is harmful to the party brand.

To win, Obama is going to have to attract millions of voters who won't be reached by the Obama branding efforts that are so effective at filling stadiums with thousands of dedicated loyalists. Most of those millions will be voting for Obama primarily because he is the Democrat -- so it does not serve him to see that brand diminished and derided. Plus, many of those voters, as long time Democrats, feel personally derided every time the Clintons and their achievements are derided.

A fact that the GOP understands very well, even if many of Obama's younger supporters do not.

The Obama campaign can't afford to be associated with that derision. Nor can the Clintons do anything to repair the damage to Obama any such association can cause.

For all those clinton supporters who are planning on voting for mccain- let me tell you, if Obama loses HRC will be BLAMED for it. I will blame her for it and her supporters. Trust me, if Obama loses, HRC is FINISHED. Not that she is now. It is good he did not choose her. she does not deserve it. She should be marginalized. I wonder how all the people who were maligned and treated badly by the clintons feel today. Karma, anyone?? If she wants to stand again in 2012, she better show some support to the candidate or risk losing everything.

rajapi --

Well, you are getting rolled by the GOP. You are accepting their talking points against the Clintons and demonstrating that your support is limited to the Obama brand rather than the Democratic brand.

Considering most Republicans hate Hillary Clinton, wouldn't the fact that Obama didn't pick here please these folks? "Hey maybe that Obama fellow isn't such a bad guy afterall. I mean he stood up to Hillary and Bill..." and "Why does John McCain want folks who would have voted for Hillary? I mean does he have more in common with Hillary than he is letting on here? What promises is he making them behind closed doors?"

This ad (no real media buy -- just a lot of play on the political talk shows and discussion in the Obama supporting political media) isn't designed to get Clinton supporters to vote for McCain -- it's designed to encourage Clinton bashing by the media and Obama supporters.

Bashing that constantly distracts from the campaign, creates mutual distrust, keeps animosities alive, and is MUCH more harmful to Obama than any one ad.

Obama supporters in the media keep getting rolled by this GOP tactic again and again and again.

When will you guys wake up and see that maybe YOU, and your conviction that the Clintons and their supporters are evil, is the real problem for the Obama?

This ad suggests the McSame campaign is really desperate.  TC3K would likely cahracterize it as The Smell of Fear.

"If Barack were to lose and the Clintons are tagged with even part of the blame, Hillary would lose a large chunk of Democratic voters."

Unlikely. The vast majority of Democratic voters aren't Clinton haters. They voted for Bill Clinton twice. And, in this year's primaries Hillary was the candidate with the greatest support among Democratic regulars in the primaries.

The kind of people who are spending this campaign being "sensitive" to anything Clinton aren't dedicated Democrats. They're Naderites, Perot-nuts, Obama cultists and former Republicans or Republican voting Independents and Libertarians who are disgusted with Bush and temporarily disillusioned with the Republican party (who will probably go back to the party eventually). People like a fellow who commented a few days ago over at TNR that if Obama named Hillary as VP he would "vote for Bob Barr."

That, my friends, is no Democrat.

I think the sadist element of this ad and McCain's campaign attacks on Obama are very divisive to the American populous. If McCain wins (big if) he & his minions will have only divided the country. As an African-American, I never have nor never will embrace the politics of Republicans. Just look at McCain's campaign...were is the diversity? He has alienated African-Americans, Hispanics, Gay, Pro-Choicers, Minorities of all ilk and to what end?

I laugh at the gullibility of those who stress upon Hillary's run in 2012... Do they honestly think that Democrats, African-Americans, and other coalitions that support Obama are truly going to embrace her candidacy for President? I think NOT!
For her own political career in NY she has to ensure an Obama victory or she & Bill will never have standing with the Party.

Ericjack --

Not even the candidate himself can "ensure" his victory. Certainly he will be the only one given credit for his victory and the only one who can be held responsible for his loss.

If "Democrats, African-Americans, and other coalitions that support Obama" are truly as gullible as you suggest -- falling for the GOP's manipulations and swallowing GOP talking points against the Clinton's whole -- then things do not bode well for this presidential election or the next.

If Barack loses and Obama's forces blame the Hilla Monster, it will impede HRC's presidential run in 2012 but she'll still be able to try again. On the other hand, if Barack wins, a Clinton run in 2012 is foreclosed. So Hillary will take the chance of alienating Obamaphiles by sitting on her hands.

It's the difference between zero chance (if Obama wins) and a slim chance (if Obama loses). The Clintons are Machiavellian schemers. Look for their forces to circulate Obama Bi[nLa]den buttons.

You should see the ads they had ready in case Obama picked Hillary. I guarantee there are some pissed off writers whose anti-Hillary ads are never going to see the light of day. Oh well, I'm sure they had fun making them.

Biden has probably presented the GOP with the leanest choice of negative material. But, not to worry. If they run out of material, they can always just make stuff up. Oh hell, they do that anyway.

Check out tonight's new CNN poll suggesting the PUMAs are on the prowl.