Hillary All But Ignored by the Media

Have you seen much of Hillary Clinton on TV lately? If you live in Ohio or Texas you're probably seeing her campaign commercials every few minutes, but if you watch the news reporting on the campaign, she's almost nowhere to be seen. Clinton wants that to change:

There was a time not long ago when Hillary Clinton dominated the discourse in both parties’ presidential contests.

Now, she’s struggling to get her message out and remain part of the campaign conversation as the media and her remaining rivals, Barack Obama and John McCain, stampede toward a general election matchup that seems more and more likely. ....

Today, though, after a post-Super Tuesday string of wins by Obama, Clinton hardly draws notice from the Republican party. The daily barrage of press releases from the Republican National Committee almost exclusively targets Obama. McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, makes almost no reference to Clinton in his campaign appearances, instead zeroing in on Obama’s record.

The media has pretty much written Hillary off as "dead candidate walking". I noticed on Special Report yesterday that there was a lengthy piece involving the back-and-forth between John Sidney McCain and Barack Hussein Obama, and only a brief clip of Clinton holding one of her policy wonk-fests, which is part of her problem. While Obama is holding rallies in front of thousands of screaming and fainting fans, Clinton is doing these panel shows where people you don't care about are discussing arcane policy objectives. Booooorrrrrrring.

The good news is we probably won't have to see Clinton at all pretty soon.

However, she's not going quietly:

ABC News' Nitya Venkataraman: Closing in on the March 4 contests, Sen. Hillary Clinton debuts a campaign ad today with ominous undertones.

"It's 3:00am and your children are asleep," the voice over says. "There's a phone in the White House, and it's ringing. Something is happening in the world. Your vote will decide who answers that call."

"Whether someone knows the world's leaders, knows the military, someone tested and ready to lead. It's 3am and your children are safe and asleep. Who do you want answering the phone?"

The tone of the ad -- which echoes the infamous Daisy Ad from the 1964 Johnson-Goldwater presidential race and the red phone ad former Vice President Walter Mondale ran against Gary Hart in their '84 race for the Democratic nomination -- indicates that the Clinton campaign is pulling out the all the stops leading into the Ohio and Texas primaries.

You don't want the phone ringing at 3am in a Clinton White House. It might interrupt Bill and his intern.

UPDATE: Here's the ad. See if it makes you more likely to vote for Hillary... or any Democrat: