the informercial

By now, you'd have to be living as a recluse not to have heard about last night's broadcast of a 30 minute infomercial produced by the Obama campaign. It could be watched on three of the major networks and on many others. To watch it from the begining : click here.

What was the aim of this long ad? Obama wanted/needed to

-  reintroduce himself to the electorate in a more direct and casual fashion and on his own terms

-  reassure the voters that the candidate is not a radical, to  that the Republicans have been striving to define

-  showcase some of his policy proposals by presenting them as answers to the problems faced by ordinary Americans who are clearly given a substantial and yet support role in the grand narrative. 

-  make use of Obama's capacities as a public speaker, and remind voters of how powerful his rhetoric can be was almost forgotten after hours of watching the drawn-out presidential debates. 

-  show that the candidate is "presidential" (notice how the office in which half of the scenes take place has a bit of an oval office feel to it).

What struck me the most is how cleverly Obama is presented as a professor, a father, a son, a preacher, a listener, and probably in a few more roles. The editing is quite smooth although the strings are often quite apparent and the transitions pretty obvious, but this is probably no accident. American history is deftly interwoven in the narrative and provides the Obama story with a broad backdrop, and presents his candidacy as something that is no rupture with the "American soul", despite his emphasis on change. This makes voting for him participating in something historic and deeply rooted in the American dream. 

So despite the poor musical choices, the video works quite well, I thought. 

Why spend more than $5M for this last minute ? 

-  the Obama campaign is probably trying to avoid complacency and encourage people to vote even if the polls are in favour of Obama, though the gap is probably closing and most of the so-called "undecided" will probably go to McCain ( listen to the October 23rd  installment of It's all politics from NPR, available on i-tunes)

-  and why not? they have the cash at hand, so why not launch a final push

For the West Wing fans out there : read this article on the similarities between the fictionnal campaign of the last season of the series, aired in 2006 and the 2008 election. It is striking, and I am currently rewatching that very season with unabated enthousiasm.