Wednesday, May 02, 2012

Behind the Ad: The new Obama/Biden attack ad

By Richard K. Barry

Who: The Obama/Biden Re-election Campaign.

Where: Ohio, Iowa, Virginia.

What's going on: The Obama campaign team just released a new ad that defends Obama's record and then attacks Mitt Romney for having a Swiss bank account while working as a corporate executive.

Here's the National Journal's take:

While defending the president on his clean energy initiatives, the ad goes after the oil industry's attacks on Obama as "over the top" and "erroneous." The narrator says, "President Obama’s clean energy initiatives have helped create jobs for projects across America, not overseas."

Then, shifting to his chief rival, the ad takes on Romney: "What about Mitt Romney? As a corporate CEO, he shipped American jobs to places like Mexico and China. As Governor, he outsourced state jobs to a call center in India. He’s still pushing tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas." 

Politico is reporting that the ad, entitled Swiss Bank Account, will air in three swing states: Ohio, Iowa, and Virginia.

Politico also says that:

The Obama campaign has bought $458,883 in airtime so far in Ohio, $88,455 in Iowa and $72,845 in Virginia for ads running May 1 to May 7, a buyer source says.

Alex Burns at Politico writes that the formula of the ad is to "push back at anti-Obama claims by outside GOP groups and take a whack at Romney in the process."

On the issue of pushing back against lies, there's going to be a great need for that especially with all the third-party money involved.

On the main theme, I guess there is no limit to how much you should push your core message, which is that Romney is a rich guy, who is out of touch. Now, maybe I just pay way too much attention, but I'm starting to become weary of that message and it's only May. Still, I always cite one of the most important Carville-isms when it comes to political messaging, which is: tell them, tell them again, then tell them that you told them. Something like that.

And the corollary: By the time the initiated are absolutely sick of a campaign's core message, most voters are just starting to pay attention for the first time.

Oh, it's going to be a long six months.

Here's the new ad:



(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

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