Thank you Ezra. I hate that fucking 2 minutes of High Broderite bullshit, and you're the first pundit I've seen who seems to get it.

The 527s need to take the messaging out of Obama's and Axelrod's hands. They don't get it.

Damnit Ezra, I was feeling good about that ad--until this. I fear you are right though. Damnit.

And speaking of health care, McCain's proposal to tax health benfits would be enough by itself to lose him the election if any voters actually knew about it. Who's going to tell them?

Completely disagree. "High Broderite" is exactly what you want here... the atmospherics are a perfect contrast to comsmetics and farm animals BS. Americans know that the economy is FUBAR, and they are going to be attracted to someone who seems serious about it... doesn't matter what he says, but how he says it, and he says it perfectly.

The biggest difference is "you" vs. "we". Clinton includes himself, rhetorically and emotionally, in the experience of anxiety and anger caused by a lousy economy. "We've been under trickle-down economics...let's spend more on education...let's provide basic healthcare for all Americans...If we do those things, we'll compete and win, and we'll bring this country back."

And as Clinton discusses this, he's clearly pissed off and fed up. The same as the voters.

Contrast Obama. "For many of you, our troubled economy is not news...You're paying more than ever for health insurance...while you've been living up to your responsibilities...Much of this campaign has been consumed with petty attacks that have nothing to do with you."

And Obama sounds anything but angry, pissed off, or fired up as he describes other people's anxiety and anger.

Politicians almost always do better in the 1st person than in the 2nd or 3rd. People have a harder time connecting with a politician who says, "You have problems, and I'll fix them" than with one who says, "We have problems, so let's go fix them!"

J.W., if you're old enough, I bet you thought Jimmy Carter in is goddamn cardigan was hot stuff too.

Pesto

There is a specific reason for which Obama CANNOT do ANYTHING that even remotely evokes anger.

I will let your smart self figure it out yourself.

what percent of the vote did clinton win in '92?

I disagree. It's not a flashy "I feel your pain" ad, but it's calm and serious and forward looking. In a sea of turbulence, that's not a bad way to be. It also conveys, in a subtle undercurrent, that Obama is far more in touch with reality, and has thought about our situation a lot longer, than McCain. I think we should stop making comparisons to Clinton, and accept Obama has who he is.

I don't think this ad needs to be nitpicked to death. As with all advertising, the important thing is the impression it creates, not the factual content. You don't have to watch all two minutes of this ad, or even more than a few seconds of it, to get the point: "We're in big trouble and we need a grown-up to handle it. I'm the grown-up."

The people who do stick around for two minutes get a little substance. But most everyone who watches it will get the message.

Benjamin,

There is a specific reason for which Obama CANNOT do ANYTHING that even remotely evokes anger.

I get IT. He's A black MAN. Can't be angry.

On the other hand, even without showing anger, Obama continues to face a huge "he's just not one of us" problem, which is also caused by the fact that he's black, and is exacerbated by his "funny sounding" name. So that would be a reason to go out of his way to include himself in the experiences of ordinary Americans, rather than presenting himself as outside of that experience.

3rd-partying the union does not work in a campaign. He doesn't even need to be angry. He could just say some of what Clinton said -- "We've been living under the GOP's trickle-down ideology for the last 8 years, and what has it gotten us?..." without saying it in an angry way. That would at least position him among the worried and anxious, even if he doesn't reflect them emotionally.

I seem to recall that Obama snuck health care in there as well, but I don't want to sit through the ad again to confirm that. Which, I suppose, goes to your point about the ad being sort of long.

I disagree somewhat about the tone. I don't think now's the time to let up on McCain with something gauzy like this.

No one cares about plan details, and no one in Camp Obama cares if anyone clicks on an Obama plan link. This is a good ad on the subliminal level. It contrasts the heaving and braying of the GOP, the 'weird smiling' that McCain practices, and is dismissive of the right things for the right reasons.

I'm mildly shocked that there's no mention of Unemployment and a job plan in this message. 6.1% rate (and rising) and neither candidate has hit this point repeatedly.

All in all, I think it's a 'Daytime Soap'-type advertisement. Calm and reassuring.

"You could easily have imagined a line like, "and we'll give you health care that can't be taken away, because in an unstable economy, no American should ever have to worry about their medical benefits."

How could anyone imagine such a line?

Obama isn't running on such a plan.

Ezra claims he is because Ezra just loves to lie when he thinks it's to his advantage.

Seriously, after all of the debunking of the past 12 months, Ezra still is claiming that Obama has a universal healthcare plan?

Al Franken wrote a book about Ezra called "Lies (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them): A Fair and Balanced Look at Ezra Klein"

A counter-read: Obama comes across as calm and presidential, while McCain makes vague populist noises and running clarifications of his position.

The danger to savings and retirement plans needs to be driven home to people. The Wall Street meltdown will hit regular folks -- especially those in their 50s -- with 401(k)s, IRAs and other pension plans, whose investment parameters they don't really control, much harder than it will hit hedge-fund managers and trust fund babies.

Broadcast TV doesn't run many two-minute ads, so where is this one playing? Cable? Net-only?

Who in their right mind at Obama HQ thinks that this is worth it at this stage of the campaign? People don't watch commercials for substance-laded stuff like this. Commericals are funny, shocking, eye-popping for a reason; it's because the messanger has to break through to a viewer who isn't necessarily paying full attention.
What a huge waste of money. McCain's favorables are still too high. What made them think that this was needed?

Permit me to expand on my previous comment. Younger bloggers like Ezra and MattY may not get this, because retirement is such a distant prospect for them.

Most people save for retirement through plans that offer them a limited number of generalized options -- basically, growth, "balanced" and "safe," maybe domestic vs. foreign packages -- in the form of managed funds. They may or may not get statements detailing the contents of these funds; if they get an itemized statement, it may or may not make much sense to them. (Your investment fund manager puts your money in the Doodah Capital Fund. But you don't get a statement from Doodah, so you don't know where it has put your money, whether it's in stocks or bonds, where you stand in line for recovering your money if a company goes under, etc.) In any case, investors have no input on which specific securities are purchased for them.

The only guides available on investment funds are based on past performance, which is now meaningless since the recent past occurred in a speculative bubble.

So on two levels, people have been investing for retirement with limited or nonexistent information, on the basis of trust. Now that trust is battered, if not gone.

This is why people, mostly in their 50s, who thought they had built up a nest egg of some size for retirement
in the near future -- or a safety net in case their jobs disappear -- are freaking out.

If this stock market turmoil continues, I guarantee you that the safety of retirement investments will be the first, maybe only, thing on the minds of these people when they vote.

The thing that makes the ad most effective is the setup: You can't speak that emphatically straight to camera, it doesn't work in the vast majority of cases, as substantively they're not all that far apart(though I'm sure some will disagree).
The off-camera person that Clinton's talking to gives him a little more wiggle room to emote, and thus make you feel what he's saying a little more. Presentation, folks.

Will anyone ever go beyond thinking of universal, perpetual health insurance as anything other than a social justice issue? Is it possible the fear of job loss leading to fear of health insurance leading to risk of complete financial devastation has something to do with loss of confidence by American consumers and investors? Does such loss of confidence have anything to do with the performance of the economy?

And if the answers to those questions is yes, doesn't eliminating that particular fear of complete financial devastation become a fundamental building-block of restoring a sound economy that works for everyone? And aren't a good number of American adults, including genuine independents and moderate Republicans, capable of putting that 2+2 together as a truism if someone on the Democratic side just says it? Sure we want universal healthcare. Because it's fair, sure. But the issue reaches 200 working Americans who depend on their jobs for health insurance, not just those who don't have it now and will probably vote in smaller numbers anyway.

"what percent of the vote did clinton win in '92?"

I will never cease to be amazed at how Democrats' view of Bill Clinton is so divorced from the actual realities of his Presidential campaigns and administration.

He never got 50% of the public to vote for him, not even when running for re-election.

His accomplishments in office, while significant, were almost all things a moderate Republican could love with little in the way of liberal or progressive policy advancements.

He and Hillary totally f'd up the best chance at health care reform in 20 years.

Most of candidate and President Bill Clinton's greatest political moves involved sticking a knife into the Democratic Party to advance himself.

Bill Clinton left office with the Democratic Party weaker in almost every way and on almost very level than it was when he won the White House.

Yet, because he managed to barely survive impeachment, it's become accepted truth that Clinton is some sort of model for how Democratic candidates should conduct themselves.

Mike

I could have written that, Mike, so clearly you and I don't disagree about everything.

I can understand the desire to see a Democrat hit back at the Republicans as hard and as tough as possible. But one of the things that's most striking about Obama is how he's trying to change the political dynamic. Instead of emphasizing "tit for tat" battles on a tactical level, he's trying to forge a a strategy for overall Democratic victory. Bill Clinton won an awful lot of battles with the GOP, but at the end they won the war by getting George W. Bush elected.

Mike

It's not a "tit for tat battle" to inform people that McCain wants to tax away their health benefits and would have pissed away their Social Security by handing it over to Lehman Bros.
That's called defining your opponent. And it's also a true statement of where your differences from him on the issues really matter to voters. That's how you win.

Two snooze-inducing minutes of pablum accomplishes none of the above.

I thought the Obama ad was much better than the Clinton ad. Clinton in that ad said nothing to convince me he would be a good president or could handle a crisis.

I guess it is a matter of taste, but Obama comes across far more presidential, which is strange given I'm used to thinking of Clinton as the president.

I don't get Ezra's reaction at all. Bill Clinton was and is the most boring and overrated public speaker in my lifetime.

Barack Obama, in contrast, is the best public speaker in national life since Ronald Reagan and Jesse Jackson.

You forget everything Clinton said as soon as he says it. And there's no policy detail there at all-- just a bunch of slogans cooked up in the focus group. (Note that once he became President, he did NONE of that stuff.)

Seeing this just reminds me of why I am so glad that thanks to Obama, the Clintons have exited the stage.

I think Obama's ad is too long and I HATE the end (unity? Left & Right? It's time to CONNECT the GOP to this MESS WE'RE IN.)

But that said, I like the tone and find it a refreshing change from the noise of the tv, esp. considering the reality that commercials are louder than shows quite often. To have this calm and emphatic commercial come on would be a nice change, I think.

But it shouldn't have been longer than 60 or 70 seconds. By the time it ended, I couldn't remember any policy promises, only "shared responsibility." Won't many of the folks watching think they've suffered enough by now??

Why does the fact that Obama's not talking about healthcare now make anyone jump to the conclusion that he's not going to talk about it ever?

The sad truth of the way campaigns play out in the media is that you can really only focus on one thing at a time, and no matter how soundly you beat somebody on an issue, it still has a limited shelf life. Focusing on the economy per se right now is a no brainer.

I don't see any reason to doubt that healthcare will be the bludgeoning weapon of choice at some future point.

that clinton ad was hip!