The LP Ad

I think the McCain campaign successfully mau-mau'd the media into calling last night's Obama production an infomercial, which has a negative connotation. But I prefer to call it an LP ad. Here it is, directed by "An Inconvenient Truth" auteur Davis Guggenheim:



Basically, the spot was a mirror of Barack Obama's closing argument speech, and a longer version of his closing argument ads that have begun to run today. Hope over fear, unity over division, change over the status quo. The large contours of Obama's argument to the electorate really have never changed. The coherence of message is pretty remarkable for a nearly two year-long political campaign.

But in the specifics, we see an Obama that is a progressive populist, ready to work on the major problems of the day - the financial meltdown, extreme income inequality, health care costs spiraling out of control, catastrophic climate change - with a vision that is unabashedly in the liberal mainstream. There were a number of set pieces in the ad, stories of regular Americans (narrated by Obama in an interesting touch) struggling in the Bush economy. I imagine that a lot of people saw themselves in those stories. And Obama's solution to these problems include middle class tax relief to make the income tax more progressive. It includes investment in clean energy and infrastructure. It includes a health care system that is more accessible and more affordable. It includes a rescue package for the middle class. It includes early childhood education and making college accessible in exchange for community service. These are solutions which could be more progressive, but they come from a very good place and a very good philosophy - that we need to grow jobs, wages and incomes for the broad majority of Americans if we want to continue to have a sustainable economy, rather than hoping that everything trickles down. That's a fundamentally progressive worldview.

My favorite segment was with the Ford factory worker in Louisville, Kentucky. Because here Obama displayed the frankest talk of the entire campaign. There's a long passage about how good manufacturing jobs - good union jobs - drove the economic engine of the country during the mid-century prosperity. How the rise of the middle class lifted the entire nation up. This is the key to restoring America's promise and progress. It was wonderful to see that in there. This is the policy prescription for that issue, from his closing argument speech:

When it comes to jobs, the choice in this election is not between putting up a wall around America or allowing every job to disappear overseas. The truth is, we won't be able to bring back every job that we've lost, but that doesn't mean we should follow John McCain's plan to keep giving tax breaks to corporations that send American jobs overseas. I will end those breaks as President, and I will give American businesses a $3,000 tax credit for every job they create right here in the United States of America. I'll eliminate capital gains taxes for small businesses and start-up companies that are the engine of job creation in this country. We'll create two million new jobs by rebuilding our crumbling roads, and bridges, and schools, and by laying broadband lines to reach every corner of the country. And I will invest $15 billion a year in renewable sources of energy to create five million new energy jobs over the next decade - jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced; jobs building solar panels and wind turbines and a new electricity grid; jobs building the fuel-efficient cars of tomorrow, not in Japan or South Korea but here in the United States of America; jobs that will help us eliminate the oil we import from the Middle East in ten years and help save the planet in the bargain. That's how America can lead again.

Going beyond that, the central argument is that as a society we have to build things that the world desires to make us viable economically again. Pushing paper won't do it. Manufacturing will.

Overall, this was an excellent summary of the main points of Obama's campaign, and it's getting great reviews. I hope he can hold off the politics of fear for just five more days and make history on November 4th.