Obama touts ‘the country I love’ in first general-election ad

June 19, 2008

Barack Obama launched his first general-election ad today, and it’s aimed specifically at “red” states with a carefully tailored message:

For those who can’t watch clips online, the ad’s script is pretty straightforward: “I’m Barack Obama. America is a country of strong families and strong values. My life’s been blessed by both.

“I was raised by a single mom and my grandparents. We didn’t have much money, but they taught me values straight from the Kansas heartland where they grew up. Accountability and self-reliance. Love of country. Working hard without making excuses. Treating your neighbor as you’d like to be treated. It’s what guided me as I worked my way up — taking jobs and loans to make it through college.

“It’s what led me to pass up Wall Street jobs and go to Chicago instead, helping neighborhoods devastated when steel plants closed. That’s why I passed laws moving people from welfare to work, cut taxes for working families and extended health care for wounded troops who’d been neglected.

“I approved this message because I’ll never forget those values, and if I have the honor of taking the oath of office as President, it will be with a deep and abiding faith in the country I love.”

I happen to think this is a terrific spot, but subtle it isn’t. The point is to effectively introduce Obama, in a 60-second ad, to an audience that may not know him well, and may have heard some smears about him.

This is one well-written script. I especially liked “taking jobs and loans to make it through college,” as a way of emphasizing his humble origins.

Chris Cillizza noted:

It’s clear from this ad that the Obama campaign recognizes that it must educate voters about his background in order to counter the slew of negative information being moved via whisper campaigns and email chains already in this race.

This ad’s message is simple: Barack Obama is just like you. He knows what it’s like to start with little and work your way up, he loves his country, he loves his family.

It’s a powerful opening salvo — aided by a candidate who looks natural delivering the message.

Nearly as interesting as the ad itself is where it’s going to air: Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Virginia. For those keeping score at home, that’s 18 states, 14 of which are “red” states, where his self-reliant, patriotic message is likely to resonate.

And pay particular attention to his lapel. Notice the pin?

Obama’s playing for keeps.

It’d be even nicer (and demonstrate his love for country) if he would help those of us opposed to the telecom immunity ‘compromise’ by joining us in fighting it from becoming law.

  • Good ad. It might have helped him in Pennsylvania and Ohio back in the primaries.

    Other than that, yeah, Senator Obama, do some preserving, protecting, and defending of the Constitution from some domestic enemies, would you? Because the Fourth Amendment is under attack.

  • Nice ad. He’s got a great voice – comforting, non-threatening. He could be a professional narrator. The photos challenge the common notion of race as he shows pics of his mother and his grandparents – I don’t think the “one drop rule” is generally accepted now as it was in the past. If someone knew nothing else about him, they would feel positive about him from this ad. Mission accomplished.

  • STOLEN FROM TPM: READ IT AND WEEP: Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman John “Jay” Rockefeller (WV), Senate Intelligence Committee Vice-Chair Kit Bond (MO), House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (MD), and House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (MO) announced today that a bipartisan compromise has been agreed to that will modernize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
    …
    “This bipartisan bill balances the needs of our intelligence community with Americans’ civil liberties, and provides critical new oversight and accountability requirements,” said Hoyer. “It is the result of compromise, and like any compromise is not perfect, but I believe it strikes a sound balance. Furthermore, we have ensured that Congress can revisit these issues because the legislation will sunset at the end of 2012.”

  • do not hold your breath for a fight on telecom immunity. the bulk of the D.C. faction of the party has announced it spreference. couple this with Obama’s primary endorsement and you can see why i saw him as the lesser of two evils vis-a-vis Clinton.

    Lead on a substantive issue; i mean really lead and hold your own party to the ideals in the ad. Whether it is FISA, veterans benefits and psychological treatment, or foreign policy, say something and do something.

    In the end, he will play it legislatively safe becuase he is playing with a lead.

    Telecom immunity (and reversing the bankruptcy reform bill) should have a been a cornerstone of a progressive/liberal campaign before now.

    eric

  • @ Dale – Great, you and I both like and support Obama. Guess what? Lots of other non-political junky people don’t like or know him yet. That’s the target audience for this ad, not high-information voters who actually know what FISA is and why Obama is disappointing us on it.

    As for FISA… well, one of my worries for this election would be that Obama *seems* to have it in the bag already and so there would be a temptation for him to spend precious time talking about issues that precisely 1% of the country cares about. What makes the netroots happy is not always a sure-fire tactic for winning a general election.

    Obama is my favorite presidential candidate in my 30 years on this Earth, but I’m steeling myself to be disappointed sometimes. This won’t be the last time that he fails our purity test…

  • This is everything it needs to be. It’s gotten lots of criticism from the left, but they aren’t the target audience. Some people won’t suppport him no matter what, but I can imagine this being a real winner for people that kind of like him and don’t really know much but have heard some nasty things about him and are sitting on the fence. People who already like him won’t find much in it. People who already dislike him will force themselves to dislike it, but I think it plays well with the fence-sitters.

    Good call, Steve B. Too many other bloggers are looking at this too narrowly.

  • I feel a lot like I did before the 2006 elections. Helpless with no help in sight

    Like one of those dreams where you’re running away from monsters, and the people you run to for help turn out to be…more monsters.

  • @ Maria 3:48, Dale 3:40 –

    Again, feelings of disappointment are understandable. But let’s keep it in perspective. Take those feelings of anger and hopelessness, and use them as a spur for you to donate and work your tail off to elect progressive Dems.

    Obama’s #1 priority right now is getting elected, and a lot of other issues for him will get pushed aside unless they help him with priority #1. If this is too upsetting for you, might I suggest the ideologically pure choice of voting for Nader?

    …Okay, that was a little snarky, but I get exasperated with the tendencies of us Lefties to get infatuated with candidates and then get hurt when it turns out that they are not going to protect our precious feeeeelings in every instance.

    Again, if this is upsetting, organize! Support candidates who believe the same things you do! Call your congresspeople! Once Obama’s in office, gril him HARD on progressive issues!

  • This is good ground—very good ground. McEntitled is going to have to start swinging his campaign around to specific issues and policy items because of stuff like this. There’s nothing in it for him to attack.

  • Good analogy, Maria. Not much Obama does right now means much to me unless he speaks out on this FISA thing. If he wants to educate people then let him educate him on stuff that matters like FISA instead of whether he’s an All-American Boy or not.

    The organization that is raising money to make a couple of Bush dogs pay for this crime, theStrangebedfellows.com
    http://www.thestrangebedfellows.com/

    has an image that I was sure was a set of Depends or a diaper when I first saw it. I thought of McCain.

    I suspect way more than 1% of voters care about the FISA issue. This is not a fringe issue. This is a core issue tied to the future of country.

    And making an ad for the bush dog in Ga is inexcusable as well.

    Congress should have folowed Cleaver’s advise to just Stop. And Obama should have just kept quiet about GA.

    First, do no harm.

  • “Obama’s #1 priority right now is getting elected, and a lot of other issues for him will get pushed aside unless they help him with priority #1. If this is too upsetting for you, might I suggest the ideologically pure choice of voting for Nader?”

    Bull$hit! His priority is fealty to his core princples.

    That is the same as the support the DINO because it is better than a repub. No, the solution is to run a progressive candidate in the primary to show that progressive ideals matter and can win.

    Likewise, run on these issues; articulate the rightness of your position and let the voters understand. The voters can get this: companies illegally spied on YOU because they passively let a now disgraced DOJ get away with shredding the Consitution. Qwest did not do it. Why? Because it was wrong. It is always wrong to spy on AMERICANS, white, black, latino, southerners, northerners, masons, shriners, jews, christians, muslims without a warrant. That is a large part of why we broke from King George.

    By analogy, I think black people should be allowed to vote, but because it is too painful for certain white southerners and that could cost me the election, I won;t support it. Sound right? No.

    The issues you are willing to compromise on show your values as much as the ones you choose to fight for.

    Standing up for the Constitution is not an election year strategy. And despite the hackery of W, it is the President’s job to uphold the Consitution.

  • No, it wasn’t snarky, DanM; it managed to be both hysterical and patronizing, which is quite a feat. Well done.

    I take it you’re brand-new here, or you wouldn’t confuse some perfectly natural expressions of frustration today from two people who have repeatedly affirmed our dedication to the Democratic candidate with “ideological purism,” “infatuation” or “hurt.” (The Nader crack makes you look particularly foolish given that both Dale and I have written extensively on third-party votes–hint: never approvingly.) Nor should you naively and self-aggrandizingly make the assumption that anyone expressing well-earned frustration with the Democratic majority on the topic of telecom immunity isn’t already working, donating and otherwise busting ass for Democratic candidates.

    You’ve no doubt encountered annoyed and short-sighted Democrats who actually do the things you’re describing, but projecting that willy-nillly onto other people without any evidence makes you look like a right ass, so lose the misplaced condescension, friend. Blog comment threads, as opposed to polling booths, are an appropriate and right-sized venue for airing these concerns, and the only person overreacting here is you.

  • Eric @ 4:08 –

    Perhaps I stated things a bit strongly. I should have said that Obama’s #1 priority is getting elected while hewing as much as possible to progressive ideals.

    Again, I would like to see Obama take a stand on FISA. I will be disappointed if he doesn’t. But we are one Supreme Court vote away from losing habeas corpus. I don’t want people’s anger over FISA to obscure that fact.

    Again – the best way to ensure that as much progressive legislation as possible is enacted is to elect Obama and support progressive Dems.

  • This was a great ad for introducing Obama to people who don’t know him very well yet. Unlike those of us who have been paying close attention for months, many many voters have not yet clued in. This ad is meant for them.

  • Maria – thank you for (bracingly) setting me to rights. I deserved that.

    Dale and Maria – I owe you both an apology. I was unaware of your previous statements re: third party voting and your dedication to working for progressive change. I’m sorry for conflating you with other people I’ve talked with in the past.

    So then here’s the question – where do we go from here? How can we work to make Obama and the Dems as progressive as possible?

  • TomB: He could be a professional narrator

    I listened to ‘Audacity of Hope’ book-on-CD last week – great narration.

    Just thought of an idea – we should ask Obama to bring back FDR’s “fireside chats” when he’s president!

  • DanM, understood, but for many of us, FISA is habeas corpus; FISA is instrusive regulation of women’s bodies. FISA is, to put it gently, a consitutional abomination.

    eric

  • Ha ha, the man is using all the GOP dog whistles. “blessed”, “faith”, “values” taking oaths, and even a paraphrase of the Golden Rule (“Treating your neighbor as you’d like to be treated”).

    I can hear the wingnuts now “HEY, them are OUR dog whistles!!!”

  • “helping neighborhoods devastated when steel plants closed”

    Look, when was the last time a candidate for President used language like this? My bet, 1968, RFK. (OK, Carter went to the Sourth Bronx and did what? as a result? I don’t think any of the others acted as if they gave the tiniest damn about cities.) About time. I’ll never forget driving down the main street of Gary, Indiana, in about 1993 — it looked like a neutron bomb had hid it in 1960, all the buildings there, nothing going on in them. I couldn’t believe whe had a country that would tolerate that. I’ll vote for a guy from Chicago’s South Side any time, even if (or especially if) it’s from Hyde Park.

  • eric@ 4:23 –

    Understood. Maria did an excellent job of (deservedly) taking me to the woodshed.

  • DanM: where do we go? I think the answer is strategically simple, but morally disappointing. We raise money. It is that simple. We learn how to energize people and deleivered bundled donations. Money talks, period. If netroots money dried up, then Obama would be in real trouble in the general.

    You want to target reactionary dems. Fund primary challenges; work with “new media” (e.g., You tube) to get a message out from behind the iron curtain of the MSM.

    sad, but alas, true — for now.

    eric

  • Yeah, not subtle and thank heavens for it. There’s a huge yawning chasm between the average general election voter and his/her knowledge not only of issues but of basic biographical/historical information of candidates and the viewpoints of political blog addicted commenters. Subtle is lost on them. Totally.

    Maybe we should have a secret signal for posts that critique ads directed at the non-addicts: one signal for portraying basic information in a straightforward, non-subtle way and a different signal for here’s the wonky topic I want addressed. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course!)

  • As Bush says the constitution is just a piece of paper. And so it is if we don’t fight to ensure it’s principles and our rights. “Why is Obama silent on the biggest attack on our constitutional rights congress is enacting?

    Hey Rick…#6 Catch up with a read at Glenn Greenwald’s site at salon.com. to see what is and what we can do about this FISA “give away” of our rights and the rule of law being sold to the highest donor.

    Obama is millions better than McCain or any other republican but we still need to hold his feet to the fire to ensure he does what he claims. He has Wal-Mart promoting “Chicago Boys” as economic advisers and rumors of supporting more of the unfair NAFTA crap while remaining strangely silent while this FISA horror is being enacted. Naomi Klein’s article I found at Democratic Underground makes me paranoid that Obama, if not pressured to stand up for what he claims to want to do, will govern like Clinton did as a conservative bringing no real change except for the Iraq debacle..

  • Russ Feingold (today): “Instead of cutting bad deals on both FISA and funding for the war in Iraq, Democrats should be standing up to the flawed and dangerous policies of this administration”

    Dammit. Why didn’t you run for Prez, Russ? WHHHYYYY?

  • Joey – I actually think he’d welcome the pressure. Obama doesn’t see himself as a magical panacea to make all of our problems go away, and he needs the support and pressure of the progressive grass roots to make progressive change happen. Progressive groups should be even *busier* after he’s elected, since now we’ll be able to agitate for *good* things to happen instead of (mostly) only trying to prevent bad legislation…

  • Interesting article in the NYT today about Michelle Obama. Talks about her life, college, career, how being black affected all of that, and how she’s brought people together. Holy cow, she’s done some great work. Very, very impressive.

    Unfortunately, public pressure (not mine!) has forced the Obama campaign to turn her into a demure housewife. How odd is it that Hillary Clinton, in her run for president, gets to accentuate her credentials, but Michelle Obama, also very accomplished, has to subdue hers? It’s so STUPID.

    Here’s the link to the article:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/us/politics/18michelle.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=Michelle+Obama&st=nyt&oref=slogin

  • #31 adding: The same attitude is what Hillary faced as First Lady. What a double standard. Argh.

  • DanM said: “Obama’s #1 priority right now is getting elected, and a lot of other issues for him will get pushed aside unless they help him with priority #1. If this is too upsetting for you, might I suggest the ideologically pure choice of voting for Nader?”

    Wasn’t that Hillary Clinton’s reason for voting for the AUMF? So she’d have a chance of getting elected.

    Ohioan said: “Dammit. Why didn’t you run for Prez, Russ [Feingold]? WHHHYYYY?”

    That’s a good question. Wouldn’t it be nice to have had a chance to vote for a Senator who we KNOW would have voted against the AUMF (because he did). Of course, you had Kucinich to support 😉 (ahh, First Lady Elizabeth K 😉 , a woman of true stature)

  • Obama needs to focus on being elected. The Republicans are going to keep pushing legislation that they think will smoke him out as a commie, pinko liberal who will sell this country out to the Terrorists. This telecom legislation is one of those issues. In their mind and in the mind of most of the sheeple, its homegrown capitalist corporations vs the TERRORISTS (suck in breath on cue). I, too, am disappointed that the telecom companies get off, but that worthless piece of paper that the Whitehouse is going to provide saying that the telecoms broke the law on their say-so, is going to hang the Bush gang later. After the election I say we go after the real criminals.

    …and laws can be changed.

  • Barack Obama has made campaign promises that he would stand against retroactive immunity for the telecoms, and that he would support a filibuster. I expect him to honor his commitment. We need a president who can be trusted to follow through on promises made.

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