What the hell? He's running for president, fer chrissakes! Would you be happier if he did a less masterful job of it? Is it the style you object to? Would you prefer more of an MTV pastiche type thing, or maybe surrealist images with dadaist poetry? I dislike conventional marketing cliches as much as the next guy, but this has some heart behind it. His campaign has found an effective way to connect with the greatest possible numbers of an immense audience, thereby possibly allowing him TO ACTUALLY WIN THE ELECTION!

Sorry to rave. I always read your comments and usually enjoy them and find myself in agreement, but in this case I think your gripe is ridiculous.

I have to co-sign partially. I hate over-produced campaign videos with the soaring music and wind blowing in the cornfields. I thought there was too much of it in the infomercial especially in the beginning. The personal bits about Obama didn't move me much nor do I think they'd be compelling to undecided voters. They've already seen that at the convention.

What was brilliant was the care they took in choosing the personal regular people's stories. They were real folks with real issues - more real than Joe the Plumber or Sarah Palin. They were compelling and relatable. I wish instead of the taped schtick they had done more live interaction with real voters. I think they may have moved the needle and picked up some undecided votes there (if people hadn't already flipped the channel thinking this is going to be another conventional slick meet the candidate piece)

And I wish there were more pie charts. Dang it I really loved the Ross Perot infomercials in 1992. THAT was entertainment.

You could have had the George Orwellian Ministry of Information -- wait, you have that already but it's called the Bush Administration.

Let me try to give you a different perspective:

143 (or so) years after the end of slavery, a black man is just days and a few million votes away from becoming President. The "standards" for him are far higher than the basic laid out in the Constitution: being a natural born citizen and having attained the age of 35. He has had to be more than "articulate and clean", intelligent and well-educated (merely graduating from a "good" state school would not be enough, nor would be graduating at the bottom of his class). Unlike others who were taken seriously without having held elective office, he had to, and even then his "experience" is questioned. Other candidates are "one of us" after a brief introduction and no information, but after 22 months people still claim that they don't "know who Barack Obama is," but they can pin all kinds of labels on him: arrogant, elitist, smug, presumptuous, uppity, angry, aloof, a communist, a radical, a socialist, a Marxist, a "Muslim terrorist," a "terrorist sympathizer," a "liberal", a "wealth redistributor," the "anti-Christ", the "Messiah," "that one," "just like Jesse Jackson," "a race-card playing race-baiter," a "ni@@er" -- you can finish your own list. Running for President was and remains an uphill battle for him -- even in these final days.

Understand, Obama has always had to do more, do it better and more effectively than John McCain, who has spent most of his life just showing up. Obama didn't have a father and grandfather to bail his behind out every time he effed up.

To combat the smears and racism thrown Obama's way, he needed money. Millions of us provided it in small donations. He needed an army of foot soldiers to spread the word. We provided that army.

This informercial was the culmination of a lot of hard work. In years past, the RNC far outraised and outspent the DNC. They took advantage of every loophole in the campaign financing laws. When hard money was not enough, they created PACs and 527s and other entities to skirt the regulations. The result: Democrats lost.

This year, Obama made a wise gamble that has paid off: forego public financing and ask the people directly to fund his campaign. He did and we ponied up.

So, I don't see the infomericial as "propaganda." I see it as validation. And if some McCain supporters or "undecideds" (read that as "I ain't votin' for no black man" voters) tuned in expecting to see Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright and Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Raoul and Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and Kim Jong Il and Vladimir Putin and the embalmed bodies of Marx and Lenin and Stalin and Kruschev and Saddam Hussein (did you know Obama's middle name is Hussein?) and saw a calm, steady, reasonable man being endorsed by people who looked like them, from places that they know, with problems like theirs, and that gave them pause then great. That's what the informercial was supposed to do.

Now you and your wife can choose to buy the propaganda from John McCain and the incomprehensible Sarah Palin or you can choose Obama-Biden.

Music and images can work both ways - to increase fear for votes or decrease fear for votes.

To highlight the difference see this example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdJUCU1UH2w

I think Obama could have gone with something similar and be completely justified. It is very important to inform the electorate of just what they would be getting in a McCain presidency. Hey scary music and just the sheer facts bring the specter of a McCain presidency into cold terrifying focus.

But instead of going that route, Obama chose to highlight his greatest strength - that he listens and understands Americans from every walk of life, understands their problems and needs, and plans to fight for them, not use them as foot soldiers to fight a global domination plan.

Rec'd for sheer courage.

1. For most of us, TV ads are not our preferred method. (Then again, most of us will happily watch talking heads for hours, and not even notice if they happen not to be wearing pants.) When it came to last night, I decided to just let myself go. Turned my criticizer down. Let myself be hopeful. And at that level, it seemed fine. Clear, simple, reinforcing. Well done.

2. That said, and while I totally understand the need for change and the admire this man, it's really a question of whether one begins to doubt and be critical and even be DISAPPOINTED now, or after the election. Because if he does win, one by one, we will hit events where we deeply disagree with Obama. Deeply enough that we'll wonder what the hell we were originally thinking. Doesn't matter whether you were into Clinton or Blair, Bobby K or Trudeau, Reagan or FDR or Lincoln. Look, not even Jesus could keep his closest disciples from doubting, a LOT. And I actually think it's the sign of a good mind, WT, to be able to do this early, to walk ahead anyway.

3. Last thought. Campaigns get into bubbles. THIS campaign is in one. Not that their thoughts are worthless, it's just that after 18 months of 24/7 life there, your world gets simplified. You're used to punching and repunching the same things. You have such dissonance between the guy you see and talk to daily, and the guy projected up on the screen, but you're USED to it. And that world, ALWAYS, gets punctured. Not all the people who run the campaign stay around. Later on, they tend to shake their heads and wonder why they got in so deep. So... they probably are into their stuff too deep. I'm ok with that, as long as they're right enough that all wake up to a victory.

Cheers, and well done for saying this stuff out loud. Public service.

A poll just out today shows that 23 percent of the state of Texas believes that Barack Obama is a Muslim. This is almost entirely due to a nonstop campaign of lies and smears that has painted him as foreign-born, a terrorist, a Communist, a former drug pusher, gay, deceitful, and anti-American.

In the face of this withering personal assault, Obama's campaign produced and aired a 30-minute political ad which was 100-percent positive. It never mentioned his opponent. It refuted the smears by presenting the essential truth of what kind of guy Obama really is -- albeit against a backdrop of soaring music and amber waves of grain.

I do not see what the problem is. It's easy enough to take a high-minded stand and deplore this or that bit of populist excess. But we've seen a long series of Democratic candidates wage high-minded, admirable, intellectually rigorous and losing campaigns. I for one am sick of it.

ULYSSES would still be a great novel if you slapped a beautiful glossy cover on it, and included a gushing blurb from Britney Spears. Obama would be the same guy if he fired his ad team, sat down at an unadorned table, broke out the pie charts, and lost the election.

Nobody would question your sincerity in raising these points. But I do think you're kind of crazy, or maybe just awfully politically naive. Your use of the term "propaganda" is defensible but nonetheless offensive, in my opinion. One might equally use terms like "sophistry" in connection with this sort of discussion.

It's as though somebody offered you a choice: You can see this man elected President, or you can see this man dragged through the street in sackcloth and ashes, but ultimately canonized by historians and remembered as the purest and noblest candidate who ever lost a race for the White House. And you stood there fretting, unable to choose.

If this was Gore or Kerry doing this I would probably be a little turned off by it. But, Obama has always had such a high hurdle that I have to give him a pass. This stuff doesn't appeal to me but probably does for 75% of the country. Liked the Obama/Bill C. rally much better at the end of the night!

The political junkies like us were never the target.

I agree that the ad was a bit schmaltzy, but it was positive and about himself. As Josh said on the front page, could McCain or Palin talk about themselves for 30 minutes without an attack?

This was for the undecideds and the nervous about Obama's "otherness" that McCain-Palin keep hammering him on.

This also may help reassure some of the RW that isn't unhinged, that Obama wil not be dangerous to America. It's sad that he has to do this.

Let me preface this by saying - I like pie.

That being said I understand your revulsion in the face of waving fields of grain and touching stories from down-home folk. I like Obama, I'm planning on voting for him but whenever I get too happy I remind myself - he's a politician. And politicians are scumbags -especially ones that run for president.

But, and, also...he's run a really clean campaign compared to McCain who has done little but throw mudpies to see what sticks. I think this was an attempt to reach middle america and fight against the "scary black man" crap McCain and friends have tried to lay on them without indulging in same kind of red-faced,spittle-spraying idiot baiting McCain seems to thrive on.

I do have hope he'll be a decent president - but I'll be ready to start complaining about the Obama administration the minute he takes office.

For years Democrats have complained because our candidates seem clueless as to how elections are won--Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry. Now we have a candidate who, like Bill Clinton before him, understands how persuadable voters make decisions (hint, it is more of an emotional process than an intellectual one for persuadables), and Democrats are complaining because it feels creepy.

I jumped to the end without reading all of the earlier comments, so this may have been said many times already. I hope it has. Obama, Axelrod, and the rest of the O team are trying to win this election. If that means offending my own highly developed esthetic, I am fine with this. Really, I am fine with whatever it takes, short of telling lies and hurting people, to get the executive branch back in the hands of non-monsters. And even a little misrepresentation (about, say, whether all of those plans for jobs and windmills can really happen in this battered, no-longer great country) is probably okay. I was frustrated during the first debate when Obama didn't confront McCain for being a liar and a fool. I thought the debate was boring, a squandered opportunity, and a draw. I thought the high road, decency thing was a mistake. Then the insta-polls started coming in, and I realized that my opinions were silly. These people know what they are doing, and what they are doing is propaganda and marketing for a good cause. Get over it. I have given Obama some of my money to do this, and he and his people do it amazingly well. I was thrilled and moved by last night's infomercial because I could see that it was steadily moving tenths of a point to Obama's column from the undecided column. If doing that takes waving wheat, Copeland, Barry Manilow, banalities, flags, puppy dogs, closeups of arthritic hands, more flags, whatever, I don't care. This is serious business. We are fighting bad people who have almost destroyed our country. I would give half my net worth to be able to
take Obama's team back to 2000 or 2004 and turn them loose on W and Karl Rove. And if they want to keep doing this after Obama gets elected, so they have a better chance at a second term, I will be pleased.

Perhaps you meant "framing"? And perhaps we should remember that television, as both medium and message, accounts for a good part of that?

You were not watching a president; you were watching a _candidate_ for the office of President of the United States summing up his case for the us the jury. Every lawyer must have his style not only his brilliant grasp of the facts.

I take from your post that you hope he won't pull out all the stops, or have violins accompanying his patter when he faces the nation as president- from the oval office or any place else. But I don't think you have no worries there. The job definition will have changed.

As for propaganda, I know the meaning of the term from WW2 days, so it may not have quite the right connotation if viewed that way. Viewed as I dare say you meant it- the Hallmark stuff- it seems a necessary part of all campaigning. No? The flags, the venues, the hoisting of babies, etc, even the lipstick and the clothes? These props massage and seduce us. Would you do without any of it?

As for pie charts, I'll take 3: one onion, one eggplant red and a clam with white sauce all smalls from Modern in New Haven.

The marketing strategies I abhor, mainly because it seems that the ends of politics (common good) and the ends of business (maximum profits) are different enough that even when borrowing techniques from one another, some legitimate kind of differentiation should occur- so bravo on that.

What I wonder about, though (and this is a preacher talking, so put in your salt grain), is the assumption (tacit in the post, explicit in the comment section) that a voter's evaluation of a candidate ought rely primarily, even entirely, upon a reasonable assessment of policy.

I think it was on Politico today, where a commenter claimed that this Infomercial demonstrated BO's 'emotional intelligence' and 'compassion,' and celebrated those as tools for effective leadership; 'soft power' was the phrase used. That strikes me as correct, in that rational policy ideas during a campaign are valuable, but as President, the candidate will a) not get it all done, and so b) need more than thoughtful ideas in order to solve problems.

Of course, BO has tried to communicate his effective 'soft power' for years now, only to have it ridiculed as 'hype,' or 'celebrity,' or 'style sans substance'. Listen to his vocal inflection, his rhythmic patterns of speech, etc. So I wonder, to get back to things, if Aaron Copland-esque, or those amber waves of grain (which looked more like a scene from 'Gladiator' to me) communicated, or tried to, non-rational capacities this candidate has for capable coalition building, consensus seeking, vision casting...i.e. leadership?

That said, the "History Chanel" comparison was spot on, perhaps a bit too much so for comfort.

The simplest question: Why would Obama make any more c a m p a i g n films like this after he wins the Presidency?
There is no there there in your "reasons to worry" closet.
Likewise, Obama hopes you will not be this overly fearful quaking in your boots guy, after the election.

Dear Worthlesscitizen,
You certainly have expressed very, very, well something that has troubled me about Obama from the very beginning. There is some mixture of George Orwell meets Walt Disney that repels me deeply.

Somehow, someone that has appeared literally "out of the blue" is infused with some sort of holy aura. What it most reminds me of from my dirty hippie days of yore, is of "ashrama", the hot house climate of an Indian ashram, where the guru's every nose picking becomes a cause for worship, is treasured, celebrated and collected.

Despite all the gushing followers, I can't get a clear view of what Obama is, was, what he wants (besides power) or what he will do if elected.

If, after so much money has been spent over so many months and the candidate still appears all things to all men, then I don't think that this is by chance: I think that that this is the general idea, the effect desired.

What astonishes and offends me is how people are painting in the empty spaces with their own fantasies and dreams. It reminds me of previous "great awakenings" where Americans sold everything and sat in fields waiting for the second coming.

Next comes the "Great Hangover".

I once tried to express it with an image, which you can see by clicking here.

Contrary to the cynicism aired here, I consider Obama more of a sincere and humble politician than most. If you understand his cultural upbringing--as a local boy from Hawai'i--you would be less suspicious of his traits.

Obama demonstrates that it's possible for a politician to be savvy yet humble; driven, as well, as diplomatic. He doesn't fit the stereotype most Americans associate with politicians.

However, Obama's polish and poise puts him at odds with the current presidential model our country has gotten used to: Dubya. Yikes. I hate to say this but CHANGE also makes people uncomfortable!

So, the whole point is that Obama has to be like a surgeon and introduce his brand in familiar, positive ways. He's got only so much time to make his case above all the noise from the McCain campaign. Call it propoganda... but what ISN'T propoganda especially at election time?

The infomercial was a necessary move--Obama's "check," if you will. Now, we wait for Obama's "check mate" and that has me on edge. My fingers are crossed that McCain's undisciplined, reactionary campaign continues to devolve.

You thought the infomercial was creepy propaganda. Others thought it was positive, emotional and uplifting. Is there something wrong with them, or is there something wrong with you? That is not a rhetorical question.

NB: For those who aren't entirely sure what constitutes propaganda, here's what propaganda is.*

*worthlesscitizen, this comment doesn't apply to you.