Donald Trump Portrayed as a Poor Role Model for Children

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/17/us/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-children-ad.html

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The Clinton campaign is continuing to focus its negative advertising efforts on provocative remarks made by Donald J. Trump, this time in a commercial that invites adults to imagine what a child might be learning from his campaign.

Soft, inviting piano tones are set against a pink sunset and a neighborhood at dusk, before Mr. Trump’s voice interrupts the tranquil scene. “I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks,” Mr. Trump is heard telling a crowd. More of his acidic comments are played, while the screen is filled with close-ups of children gazing at television sets, seemingly soaking up every R-rated remark.

“Our children are watching,” a text card warns after two small children watch a scene of Mr. Trump appearing to mock a reporter with a disability. At the end, Hillary Clinton is shown delivering a speech on children, closing with, “We need to make sure that they can be proud of us.”

THE MESSAGE The ad paints Mr. Trump as unpresidential and unfit for office, in the eyes of both children and, the ad assumes, their voting parents (who, one could argue, might not be too happy with the Clinton campaign’s rebroadcasting of the messages to children watching television). The Clinton campaign has also made Mrs. Clinton’s record of working for children and families a central focus, while trying to portray Mr. Trump as a poor role model to children.

THE TAKEAWAY The underlying message feels familiar, as it is one of several Clinton advertisements that try to use Mr. Trump’s comments against him. But the timing is important: As Mr. Trump heads into the Republican National Convention and is set to enjoy several days of free, unabated media coverage, often in prime time and perhaps when children are watching, the Clinton campaign can counter with a paid message placed strategically in the coverage.

Changing channels …

Kelli Ward, who is running against Senator John McCain in the Republican primary in Arizona, does not have the cash to commission an arsenal of attack ads against him. So she took a Mitt Romney campaign ad from his 2008 presidential primary fight against Mr. McCain and put her name on it. Conveniently, the Romney ad compared Mr. McCain to Mrs. Clinton, so it also felt timely. But the Romney campaign organization sent a cease-and-desist order, and the video was taken down from Ms. Ward’s Facebook page.

After a tumultuous 48 hours, Mr. Trump ended the speculation about his vice-presidential pick and announced, with a post on Twitter, that he had selected Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana as his running mate. In the hours after the announcement, the Trump digital presence was silent: no change to the website, no new digital ad, nothing. But within 20 minutes, the Clinton campaign had released a minute-long digital ad, shared on the campaign’s social media accounts, that sought to define Mr. Pence as extreme in his views.

Mr. Trump was asked in a debate in October if he was running a “comic book version of a presidential campaign.” A new digital series of six ads from Priorities USA, the “super PAC” supporting Mrs. Clinton, places the presumptive Republican nominee in the boxy frames of a comic book. In each ad, Mr. Trump is seen making a comment — in one, he calls global warming a hoax; in another, he argues for keeping the minimum wage low — before a voter striking a superhero pose appears and a comic font screams “Not in Our America!” But while the Clinton campaign’s new ad tries to paint Mr. Trump as being inappropriate for young ears, this series almost commits the same sin: It uses an abbreviation for an obscene exclamation.