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Tough CallWill Clinton or Obama protect your children?

By John Dickerson
Updated Friday, Feb. 29, 2008, at 6:59 PM ET

Watch Democratic voters react to Clinton's new ad on Slate V.

(Continued from page 1)

Obama's aides bring up his different judgments about Iraq in an effort to turn the drama of the sleeping-children ad back on Clinton. "She's already had her red-phone moment," said Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, referring to Clinton's vote on Iraq. By the end of Friday, the Obama campaign had produced its own ad using the ringing phone and images of sleeping children from the top of the Clinton one. "When that call gets answered, shouldn't the president be the one—the only one—who had judgment and courage to oppose the Iraq war from the start … who understood the real threat to America was al-Qaida, in Afghanistan, not Iraq. Who led the effort to secure loose nuclear weapons around the globe. … In a dangerous world, it's judgment that matters."

Clinton has said she would like to have her 2002 Iraq vote back, which suggests that even when she had time to think through her decision, she didn't make the right one. How is she going to make a better one when she has less time?

And yet, there's no question that Hillary Clinton has been more tested in her life than Barack Obama. She has taken a very public pounding from conservatives for the last 15 years on issues ranging from her private finances to her health-care plan to her possible perjury. She has had to endure the brutal public scrutiny and crucible of her husband's infidelities. The troubles she's seen are so much a part of the public consciousness that she need give only the smallest nod to evoke them. When CNN's Campbell Brown asked Clinton at the Austin debate two weeks ago when Clinton had been tested in her life, and she answered, "I think everyone knows I've lived through some crisis and challenges in my life," the audience immediately applauded. If you believe that humans have a clearer view of what to do under pressure because they've dealt with serious pressure before, then Hillary is your gal. (Even if the pressure so far hasn't come over a red phone line.)

Barack Obama gives an even less fulfilling answer when he's asked about being tested. Brown asked him the same question at the end of the Austin debate, and he didn't have a strong answer. Obama talked about his tumultuous adolescence and then returned to biographical boilerplate about his time as a community organizer. I asked Plouffe a similar question Friday, and he said that Obama's successful campaign is showing that he can handle great pressure. He has run a terrific campaign, but it tells us more about his ability to organize, lead, and inspire. I don't recognize a precipice moment in the last year that shows us much about Obama's gut.

In the end, neither candidate has a strong answer to the questions raised by this stark ad, which means Clinton's gamble in running it probably won't pay off. (There's also a possible backlash from Democrats who think she's just giving John McCain ammunition for the general election.) The final effect of this ad may be felt not in the voting booth but at home, where all across Texas, parents will hug their children a little tighter.

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John Dickerson is Slate's chief political correspondent and author of On Her Trail. He can be reached at .
Still from the Hillary Clinton campaign ad "Children."
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