Obama's 30-minute infomercial covers all bases
HALF-HOUR AD | $4 million infomercial addresses swing states, all demographics
Opening with amber waves of grain, Barack Obama's professionally produced half-hour infomercial hit every demographic group, every swing state, every talking point.
(AP)
Fighting a blitz of blogs that falsely paint him as a foreign-born, exotic anti-American friend of dictators, the ambitious $4 million infomercial airing Wednesday evening portrayed Obama as American as a Chevy.
It sewed together the best footage of Obama's campaign travels around the country -- hugging the ladies in the kitchen in hairnets, shaking hands on the assembly line, and delivering his best lines at speeches and debates with adorable footage of him playing with his photogenic daughters.
Obama reminded viewers of his grandfather's service in World War II; that he only spent a month with his Kenyan father when Obama was 10 and that his mother was fighting HMOs as she died of cancer.
The ad focused on sample middle-class or falling-from-middle-class families from the swing states that will decide this election.
Juliana Sanchez, an Albuquerque, N.M., widow who works two jobs, says, "You go buy a gallon of milk and you're like, 'OK, Is it a gallon or a half gallon -- what can I afford?' "
There was the African-American retired couple in Ohio. The husband, at age 72, must come out of retirement and work at Wal-Mart to pay for his wife's medicine.
There was the suburban white family in Missouri stretching their snacks to last a week, the mom's breath steaming in the night air as she pulls a blanket around her shoulders and watches her sons at football practice.
Running on seven networks, the infomercial was an attempt to connect with Middle America, hitting Obama's most important talking points -- his tax cut for families making less than $200,000, tax credits for college tuition.
Obama and McCain were both in Florida Wednesday where McCain earlier told his supporters: "When you're watching this gauzy, feel-good commercial, just remember that it was paid for with broken promises."