In the war of the 3am ads, there’s room for everyone, late night hosts, YouTube parodists, comedians, and cynical voters. Not to be outdone by the Hillary Clinton campaign, John McCain’s 3AM Ad is titled, “Ready.” Its tag line: “It’s time for a President who’s ready.”

Senators John McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton released dueling advertisements Wednesday that highlighted how the housing crisis has come to dominate the presidential race, with Mrs. Clinton using a version of her red-phone commercial to question Mr. McCain’s ability to handle the souring economy.

In the advertisement, the Clinton campaign again portrays a family asleep in the middle of the night when the phone rings, meant to evoke a national crisis. The narrator then intones, “John McCain just said the government shouldn’t take any real action in the housing crisis; he’d let the phone keep ringing.”

Within hours, the McCain campaign released an advertisement on the Internet. It starts with images of the Clinton advertisement, with the narrator then commenting, “Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama just said they’d solve the problem by raising your taxes — more money out of your pockets.”

The advertisements highlighted how the two parties’ candidates have developed starkly different approaches to the housing meltdown, with Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton calling for billions of dollars in aid for distressed homeowners and Mr. McCain warning against costly federal intervention.

Mr. McCain’s rapid response recalled a similar advertisement by the Obama campaign in response to Mrs. Clinton’s original red-phone advertisement, which questioned Mr. Obama’s readiness to be president. (More.)

However swift the McCain response, we are even more bemused with the Hillary Clinton campaign’s “audacity of hope” that voters will be persuaded.

On the Clinton conference call unveiling its new ad, Slate’s John Dickerson — as he did with the earlier 3:00 am ad — asked: When has Hillary Clinton ever answered the phone at 3:00 am before regarding an economic crisis?

There wasn’t the “pregnant pause” there was the first time.

Communications director Howard Wolfson responded that unless one is president, “you don’t have a single moment” like answering the phone at 3:00 am. But Wolfson noted that Clinton “has a lifetime of experience, both in and out of the White House… Ultimately, voters make this decision.” And he added, “Voters have made this decision, based on the results of Ohio and Texas, that Sen. Clinton passed this test.”

Dickerson followed up, asking the Clinton campaign to point a specific example when Clinton responded to an economic crisis. Wolfson pointed to her efforts to ensure that New York got the resources it needed after 9/11. “There is much, much credit to go around,” he said. “But. Sen. Clinton certainly did her part.”

As she did in the Northern Ireland peace talks?