New Obama Ad Touts Reform Efforts

On Iowa’s airwaves you’ll start seeing a new TV ad titled “Take It Back” touting reform efforts his campaign has taken to get rid of the influence of Washington lobbyists and PACs by not accepting donations from them to his campaign as well as highlight his work in the Senate on ethics reform efforts.  For some reason, I can’t find a version of the ad that I can embed here on Bleeding Heartland, but you can view the ad by clicking here.

It is a good ad that follows on the same theme/guidelines established in his first two biographical ads that went up on the air in Iowa, as in they help to keep telling the “Barack Obama story.”

What interests me about this ad is the highlighting of ethics and campaign finance issues as the primary focus in what is Obama’s first true issue ad in Iowa.  Will the issues really resonate with Iowans at this point?  I’m not sure.

Ethics and government reform were major Democratic campaign platforms in 2006 and were even considered to be one of the deciding issues in 2006 (right behind the catch-all issue of Iraq).  But now with House passing really comprehensive lobbying reform legislation (that will likely be passed in the Senate as is and sent to the President’s desk) it seems like Democrats are already taking big efforts to fully push through reform.

Maybe I’m just naive or way to focused on other issues like Iraq but to me the clean campaign Obama is running just makes logical sense and should be what all the campaigns are doing, and then other issues should become the real focus.

Either way, it is just a TV ad, and a good one.

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Chris Woods

  • Establishment vs. outsider

    In the battle between Obama and Clinton, ethics and campaign finance are major issues. Unlike Clinton, Obama is not taking PAC or lobbyist money, and Obama has made public all his earmarks. Obama is for public-financed elections.

    Edwards also is not taking PAC and lobbyist money and could be considered outside the Washington establishment. So the contrast in the ad is more with Clinton than Edwards.

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