Carl McCall yesterday released a new television commercial featuring Bill Clinton – believed to be the first time the former president has appeared in an ad for a political candidate since leaving office.
The ad hit the airwaves as Gov. Pataki spent the day upstate continuing to cruise – literally and figuratively – in the final week of the campaign.
The governor picked up six Democratic endorsements and took a 45-mile whistle-stop train tour through three western New York counties on a cold day.
The new McCall commercial, designed to energize the candidate’s Democratic base, was taken from comments Clinton made at a McCall rally in Washington Heights last week.
The former president speaks of being a governor himself and how it’s important to have a good chief executive in tight fiscal times.
“Carl McCall knows how to handle money,” Clinton says. “He saved the taxpayers millions as comptroller.”
The ad, which intersperses footage of Clinton at the rally with images of McCall with children and families, concludes with Clinton emphatically saying: “Somebody in power needs to be thinking about you every day, and Carl McCall will think about you every single day.”
“Bill Clinton is a very popular figure in New York,” McCall said when asked about the ad during a small rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall that included Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
A Pataki aide dismissed the new spot with a shot at McCall’s lack of campaign cash.
“They can make as many ads as they want, but it doesn’t mean they have the money to put them up on the air,” the aide sniffed.
McCall stepped up his campaigning yesterday, greeting commuters in Brooklyn and Manhattan, visiting senior centers and holding a small rally with black clergy and politicians from Brooklyn.
He capped his day with a $100,000 fund-raiser on his behalf held by former primary opponent Andrew Cuomo.
A scheduled get-out-the-vote rally with hip-hop moguls Russell Simmons and Sean “P. Diddy” Combs was canceled. Campaign aides say Simmons wasn’t feeling well.
Upstate, on the train with Pataki, Rep. Thomas Reynolds (R-Buffalo) conceded Pataki is losing the support of some gun enthusiasts to Independence Party candidate Thomas Golisano, who is known to keep a shotgun under his bed.
ADWATCH
TITLE: “Every Day”
LENGTH: 30 seconds
PRODUCER: Frank Greer
AIRING: Statewide
SCRIPT: Former President Bill Clinton speaking at a Washington Heights rally for Carl McCall:
“I was a governor for 12 years. When the economy is in bad shape, it’s more important to have a good governor. Carl McCall knows how to handle money. He saved the taxpayers millions as comptroller.
“Born poor, raised by a single mother, he learned from life itself the values of hard work, education and opportunity for everybody. Somebody in power needs to be thinking about you every day, and Carl McCall will think about you every single day.”
ANALYSIS: Trailing badly in the polls, McCall reaches out to rally his base by bringing in his biggest gun. Clinton remains hugely popular among Democrats, particularly minorities, and the McCall team hopes his glowing endorsement will not only stir turnout, but also lure back Democrats who are leaning to Gov. Pataki.
RESPONSE: “They can make as many ads as they want, but it doesn’t mean they have the money to put them on the air.” Pataki aide