The Bear is Back! Will the ad be?

Back in the '80's there was a political commercial produced by the Reagan campaign which was simple but made an important point about the need for an experienced Commander in Chief. The visual was simple, a huge bear shown in it's natural environment. The narrator spoke about the bear, not knowing it's intentions and the ramifications of actions when interacting with the bear.

It should come as no surprise that the bear in the woods represented the Soviet Union. The actions described were the potential actions of the candidates in the presidential race - the democratic leave the bear alone/don't upset the bear approach versus Reagan's load up on weapons and be ready approach.

Over the last 20 years the bear has been in hibernation. But the recent events in Georgia show us that he's awake again. Not only that he's shed some pounds, is hungry, mad and is far stronger than he was before his long rest. Russia has gone through a transformation. Russia now has a market economy on top of it's already vast natural resources. In fact, they have the most important natural resource in the world right now - oil. The Russians never lacked imagination or the will to be technologically advanced. They were founding members of the nuclear club, led the world in space technology and had advanced fighters and missiles. With money they have all of that and less poverty so now there's no choice between weapons and feeding the masses. In short, the Russians may be more dangerous now than the crumbling Evil Empire of the '80's.

The question now is how will this play out in our current presidential campaign. One candidate is a political newcomer with no foreign policy experience who was damaged when his primary opponent ran an ad about him getting a 3AM call. The call in that ad was about terrorism but in the new context can be about terrorism or an invasion of a friend or ally - both of which Georgia is. The other candidate is as old as Reagan when the ad was run and actually has more military experience that Reagan did. Will he rerun the ad or a variation of it to make a similar point? If I were his adviser I know I would.