Obama's Special: He's a Good Guy
Politics Daily — Filed under: Democrats, Barack Obama, 2008 PresidentI just finished watching Barack Obama's half-hour television special, and aside from presenting the bullet points of his would-be presidency, the overriding message was the above reassurance: This is a good guy. The special interspersed those bullet points with stories of everyday Americans, struggling to get by, in search of some hope. They did a good job of making the stories relatable and poignant, without being overly sentimental. These are people with practical problems, and Obama spoke to their prolems with clarity. What really struck me, though, was how ...

Obama: 'American Stories, American Solutions'
Ben Smith's Blog — Here's the whole thing.

Obama Airs 30-Minute Program
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American Stories, American Solutions
Oliver Willis — Sen. Obama’s really good primetime commercial is now online:

American Stories, American Solutions
Greatscat! — Tonight, the campaign aired a special 30 minute program in which Barack addressed the nation about his plan for the country and the issues that are at stake in this election. In case you missed any part of it, or if you want to watch it again or share with your friends, you can watch the full program below: -Diane Stumble Upon Toolbar ...

Obama’s 30 Minute Informercial: Smart Production Values And Smart Target Focus
The Moderate Voice — There are those of us who are old enough to remember the days when politicians bought 30 minute blocks of time to do informercials that ran on one or more networks. These political informercials weren’t always purchased by the main, top candidates — and their production values often left lot to be desired. In 1964, then Pennsylvania Gov. William Scranton ran an extended commercial to try and unsuccessfully stop conservative Senator Barry Goldwater. And throughout his controversial and unsuccessful national career, third party candidate Lyndon LaRouche would buy big blocks of network time (one of the most notable I recall was where he ...

Obama video open thread II
Daily Kos — For those of you away from a TV:

Obama's Commercial
The Atlantic Politics Channel — (One thing I've noticed: you can't tease the Obama team about it. I tried. They take it very very seriously.  A lot of folks worked hard on it, yes, but television commercials with musical soundtracks are inherently amusing. Even when they're not supposed to be.) ...

Barack Obama
culturekitchen - fresh dissent served daily —

Barack's Infomercial
The Washington Note — I thought that the idea of a 30 minute infomercial on Barack Obama's approach to policy and life had more downside than upside. I think I was right overall -- but Obama's performance and the package as a whole hit the target -- and despite the risk -- they will get more upside from this. For those who missed it or who want a replay, the video has been posted on YouTube just moments ago. -- Steve Clemons

The Obama Infomercial: How To Spend Their War Chest Before The Election Is Over
TPM Election Central — Here it is -- Barack Obama's prime-time infomercial: The piece itself -- with a mix of Obama's life story, praise from Democratic leaders and some discussion of policies we've all heard before -- is less interesting than its own existence and what it represents. Nobody has attempted something like this since Ross Perot, and he had his own money to bankroll his informercials. It's intriguing to consider the enviable problem the Obama campaign has on its hands: Their small donors have been giving them so much money, they're left to think up new ways to spend the cash before the ...

The Obammercial : American Stories, American Solutions
culturekitchen - fresh dissent served daily — I watched the Obammercial on Univisión to see what good a job they were going to do in translating the thing. Well, I have to give them a B- in Spanish (and honestly, I really should be harsher but am giving them that for effort) and an A- in English. But let me start with the actual task at hand. I think Obama knocked it out of the park for fulfilling the first commandment in Marketing and Advertising : Thou shalt never mention your opponent when you're selling yourself. The video was an iteration of the a documentary they showed at Denver's ...

Production Values
Hotline On Call Part Deux — Barack Obama's 30-minute commercial was a beautifully-produced, meticulously thought through effort to close the deal with the American people. Nothing was overlooked: -- Not the featured citizens who live in battleground USA (MO, OH, NM); -- Not the featured pols, who also hail from swing states (OH Gov. Ted Strickland, KS Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, MA Gov. Deval Patrick, NM Gov. Bill Richardson, VA Gov. Tim Kaine, MO Sen. Claire McCaskill, among ...

Obama's Closing Argument Election 2008
Politicol News — This says it all, and says it well. There should be no more undecided voters if you listen with your heart and soul and remember the last eight years. TAGS: Vote Obama.

Video: The Obama Half-Hour Ad
The Latest on Air America — Show Schedule: Weekday Saturday Sunday [ Times shown are EST ] /clout Weekdays 9pm /thisisamerica Weekdays 11pm /thisisamerica Weekdays 12am /lionel Weekdays 1am /thomhartmannpage Weekdays 3am /doingtime Weekdays 6am /thisisamerica Saturday 10pm /thisisamerica Saturday 12am /lionel Saturday 1am /thomhartmannpage Saturday 3am /doingtime Saturday 6am /moneymessage Saturday 9am /ringoffire Sunday 8pm /onthereal Sunday 11pm /thisisamerica Sunday 12am /doingtime Sunday 2am /lionel Sunday 6am /7daysinamerica Sunday 9am Listen to On The Real ...

The Ad Campaign: An Obama Infomercial, Big, Glossy and Almost Unavoidable
The Caucus — Senator Barack Obama broadcast a half-hour prime time infomercial on Wednesday night on three of the major broadcast networks — Fox, NBC and CBS — as well as Univision, BET, TV One and MSNBC. It was the first program of its kind in 16 years. THE PROGRAM The program gave a new meaning to the word “infomercial” and, for that matter, to all notions of political advertising. Executed with high standards of cinematography, with help from the director of “An Inconvenient Truth,” Davis Guggenheim, the infomercial was part slickly produced reality program; part Lifetime biography; and part wonkish policy lecture with music that could have come from “The West ...

Obama's Infomercial
Taegan Goddard's Political Wire — Sen. Barack Obama bought 30 minutes on each of the major television networks to run this advertisement tonight. Based on both production quality and message, it was extraordinary.

So there was that Obama informercial.
Althouse — Did anyone actually watch it? Any sign that it was an effective tactic? I ignored it. It was on too early for my Central Time Zone ways. It's not as if it isn't available on YouTube. Here it is. You tell me if it was as good as tonight's episode of "Deal or No Deal." ...

The Obama Informercial
BlondeSense — If you didn't watch it earlier. It's quite impressive.

The Daily Blue America Report-- #6
DownWithTyranny! — I'm going to break format tonight and put off writing about the Blue America candidates for a day so we can offer everyone an opportunity to just sit down for 30 minutes and watch Barack Obama make the case for his presidency. Compare it to the vicious and negative John McCain campaign. This is what the country I love is all about. This is the inspiration and hope for the country I love. This isn't a message for Democrats or for Republicans. This was a message appealing to the best in each and every one of us. I'm betting the whole country except the narrowest ...

Watch Barack Take A 30 Minute Dump
Pat Dollard | Young Americans —

The case in 30 minutes
Political Animal — THE CASE IN 30 MINUTES.... The Obama campaign's 30-minute commercial could have gone in a couple of different directions last night, some better than others. I was fairly confident he would rely on Ross Perot's pie charts -- the hallmark of the last candidate to air a half-hour commercial -- and it was unlikely that we'd see Obama just talk to the camera the entire time. What the campaign did, instead, made for a pretty compelling program, highlighting the difficulties facing four real families -- all of whom, by the way, live in "red" states -- confronting common challenges. The segments, and Obama's policy prescriptions, were, as publius noted, " pitch ...

Politics Of Persuasion: Obama Hits Comfort And Leadership Notes, While McCain Hits New Petty Low
Firedoglake — The Obama 30-minute spot was a brilliantly crafted film, designed to say one thing to wavering Americans: "I'm one of you, and I understand your troubles, too."  All of the weeks of petty, inaccurate crapola from McCain, the smear merchantry behind the ...

Missing The Point
Balloon Juice — Patrick Ruffini and the Next Right: What will it take to turn this around? If you’re a conservative blogger, the question you need to ask yourself is this. Is the main purpose of your blog to express your personal opinion? Or is its primary purpose to build political power for a cause? If you cannot answer yes to the latter, you’re probably not going to be comfortable with making the changes necessary to make online conservatism a political force to be reckoned with. This is not a criticism, but an observation. Most conservative blogs are still stuck in 2003—both in terms of the overwhelming focus ...

My alarm clock must die
The Sideshow — I'm watching the Obama infomercial from last night. I'm around the halfway mark and so far it's pretty good - it certainly speaks to the right issues and the fact that these are shared concerns not divided by race, sex, or political identity. It's not perfect, but it looks like the kind of thing you might want to pass on to your conservative relatives and see how they take it. If it makes a dent, you might also want to point out that that is the liberalism they've been railing against for the last 30 years. Once again, I wake up and my clock radio is going on and on and on about the evils of Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand, who ...

Last Night's Infomercial
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan — I couldn't watch it, but you can see it here if you want. Judging by the blogosphere's reactions, it doesn't seem like I missed much. But the McCain camp's response was pretty good: As anyone who has bought anything from an infomercial knows, the sales-job is always better than the product. Buyer beware. ...

Solid Ratings for Obama-mercial
The Caucus — More than 20 percent of American households watched Barack Obama’s 30-minute campaign commercial on Wednesday night, according to preliminary ratings. In the top 56 local TV markets, the household rating for Mr. Obama’s message was 21.7, Nielsen said. The rating indicates the percentage of homes that watched the program. While it will be impossible to judge how many undecided voters the infomercial reached, Mr. Obama’s message clearly reverberated across the country, drawing more viewers than most prime time programs. The commercial was particularly high-rated in several battleground states. According to Nielsen , 29 percent of households ...

10/30: Sex, Lies, and Videotape
Blogometer — October 30, 2008 10/30: Sex, Lies, and Videotape As one might expect, liberal bloggers were impressed by Barack Obama 's 30-minute TV ad , whereas conservative bloggers (that is, the few who watched it) hated it. Lefty bloggers are describing the ad as "pitch-perfect" and "flawless" . One liberal blogger thought that the ad "accomplished exactly what it needed to do: soothing skittish white undecided voters without alienating current supporters" . Righty bloggers, on the other hand, found the ad "overtly manipulative" and "a bit nauseating" . Several of them are predicting that it will backfire. In other ...

The Obamercial: Half Campaign Ad, Half "60 Minutes"
The Huffington Post | Full News Feed — The reviews from last night's Barack Obama infomercial — aka the 30-minute ad buy on NBC, CBS, Fox, MSNBC, BET and Univision — are in, and they are pretty good. That should surprise no one; the Obama campaign has proven itself pretty darn good at execution. Despite the very real risk of overreaching and seeming extravagant and excessive (Greek columns, anyone?), the campaign was smart in making the Oba-mercial not just about the candidate, but about four separate American families and their struggles — and how Obama was going to help them. Did it break new ground? Not really — even ...

The Infomercial
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan — It was a ratings success: one in ten Americans watched it. Maybe I should have.

AP Still Kneecapping Obama
Crooks and Liars — Gotta love that "librul media"... Daily Kos: What can one say about the Associated Press these days? Rather than realize the error of their ways in becoming a conservative mouthpiece out of their D.C. office rather than an objective news source, they've apparently doubled down their bets on McCain's dying presidential campaign. Just moments after Obama's detailed, inspirational video tonight, the AP's McCain-loving Washington Bureau came out with their latest piece: Obama's prime-time ad skips over budget realities Democratic presidential ...

It's cash in America, or trying to buy an election
Daimnation! — A constant theme of progressive thought is that wealthy people of the capitalist persuasion are able to use their money unduly to influence public opinion (whatever that is, these days)--and elections in particular. I really do wonder how those progressive types will assess the Democratic presidential candidate's buying a huge amount of air time with private money, whilst the Republican candidate (a secret socialist?) relies on government-provided financing. I guess the Marxist analysis of the political power of asset possession just doesn't cut it these days. When, in fact, an awful lot people actually have disposable income they can ...

Christina Bellantoni: Bill Clinton and Obama join forces for first time
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — First published at WashingtonTimes.com ORLANDO, Fla. — The Barack and Bill show last night drew 35,000 in Kissimmee.   Bill Clinton gave a nearly identical argument he's been making on the trail for Sen. Barack Obama for weeks, but had a few good jokes and a nice defense of the Democratic nominee over the whole socialism debate.   "America works from the ground up not from the top down," the former president said. "They talk about redistributing the wealth, they presided over the greatest redistribution of wealth upward since the 1920s and we all know how ...

Top 60 Memorable Campaign Ads Of 2008
The Huffington Post | Full News Feed — It is tradition in every campaign for each side to denounce the other as having run the sleaziest race in modern political history. And certainly it seems like every day brings with it a new attack ad deemed "the worst one yet." While historians are generally skittish when it comes to such claims -- pointing out that past years witnessed some serious mudslinging of their own -- it is hard to dismiss just how dirty and/or memorable some of the attack ads have been this election cycle. Many times it is an outside group hurling the sludge. On several occasions the notably nasty or remarkable stuff is aired during a Congressional ...

Top 60 Memorable Campaign Ads Of 2008
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — It is tradition in every campaign for each side to denounce the other as having run the sleaziest race in modern political history. And certainly it seems like every day brings with it a new attack ad deemed "the worst one yet." While historians are generally skittish when it comes to such claims -- pointing out that past years witnessed some serious mudslinging of their own -- it is hard to dismiss just how dirty and/or memorable some of the attack ads have been this election cycle. Many times it is an outside group hurling the sludge. On several occasions the notably nasty or remarkable stuff is aired during a Congressional ...

Juanita Stuart, Profiled In Obama Infomercial, Benefits From Anonymous Donor
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — Just before the election, the Obama campaign bought 30 minutes of airtime for a spot that profiled four American families struggling to live the American Dream. Half a year later, one of those families, Larry and Juanita Stuart, an older couple living in Sardinia, Ohio, continues to scrape by. But that's not to say their role in the video didn't change their lives. The Stuarts owned their own home and had looked forward to a comfortable retirement. "But with [Juanita's] rheumatoid arthritis, and other ailments, her medical bills have been rising," said Obama in the ad. "To meet their payments, they've had to take a loan on their house. And ...

Obama's "American Stories": Families Profiled In Campaign Ad Struggling Six Months Later
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — As Election Day neared last fall, the Obama campaign went big with a 30-minute television ad that profiled four American families struggling to keep afloat in a worsening economy. Between each of the "American Stories," as Obama called them, the video showed the candidate on the hustings, promising "a rescue plan for the middle class." Six months into Obama's presidency, only one of those folks has seen anything resembling a rescue -- and it wasn't because of any government program. After the ad aired, a mysterious angel donor helped cover the costs of surgery and copayments for the Ohio retiree who suffered from crippling rheumatoid arthritis in her right ...

Arthur Delaney: Obama's "American Stories": Families Profiled In Campaign Ad Struggling Six Months Later
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — As Election Day neared last fall, the Obama campaign went big with a 30-minute television ad that profiled four American families struggling to keep afloat in a worsening economy. Between each of the "American Stories," as Obama called them, the video showed the candidate on the hustings, promising "a rescue plan for the middle class." Four months into Obama's presidency, only one of those folks has seen anything resembling a rescue -- and it wasn't because of any government program. After the ad aired, a mysterious angel donor helped cover the costs of surgery and copayments for the Ohio retiree who suffered from crippling rheumatoid arthritis in her right ...