COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton began airing her first campaign radio ad Monday in early voting South Carolina, casting herself as a caretaker for all Americans.
“If you’re stuck on a rooftop or stranded in the Superdome during a hurricane, you’re invisible to this president even when you’re on CNN,” Clinton says in the 60-second ad, referring to New Orleans residents in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. “Well, you are not invisible to me, and you should never be invisible to the president of the United States.”
The New York senator’s campaign said the ad was being aired on more than two dozen predominantly black radio stations in South Carolina. Nearly half of the 2004 Democratic primary voters here were black.
The message echoes a theme Clinton has used during stump speeches around the country, including at an NAACP banquet earlier this month in South Carolina. In the ad, an announcer says Clinton “has spent her life standing up for people others don’t see” and has logged “35 years as a tireless advocate for children and families.”
Clinton also references the so-called “Corridor of Shame” of poor school districts along Interstate 95 in South Carolina.
“If you are a child in a crumbling school along the ‘Corridor of Shame,’ you are invisible to this president,” Clinton says.
Clinton’s chief rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, visited one of those schools in the corridor last month, saying the run-down facilities need more money for education to improve.
This is Clinton’s first ad of any kind in South Carolina. Previously, her campaign has aired television spots in Iowa and New Hampshire, spokesman Zac Wright said. He would not say how much the campaign spent on the ad buy or how long it would air.
The ad announcement comes on the same day Clinton added her fifth major union endorsement. International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers President John J. Flynn said Monday that Clinton “has the strength and experience to deliver the chance America needs.”
The bricklayers said they are the oldest continuous union in North America and that they represent about 100,000 skilled masonry-trowel tradescraft workers.
Also Monday, Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney began airing a radio ad in South Carolina and in Iowa opposing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York. The ad reminds listeners that Romney, while governor of Massachusetts, opposed former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami’s 2006 visit to Harvard and refused to give Khatami a state police escort.
Ahmadinejad spoke and answered questions at a Columbia University forum Monday, followed by an address to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday.