What we learned tonight....Obama's Political Ad

Overall, it was well done though I can see how if you have been following the campaign for two years it was not "new." Somtimes its best to reassure voters. If you missed it, you can watch it here.

Obama's political ad marries the problems of average Americans with solutions to those problems. Its strength resides on, first, Obama's calmness and, second, the ability of American voters to reach out to other voters. For example, in a time of economic crisis, the story of the women who opens her fridge to find very little for her family reminds the audience of the failures of the Bush Administration and warns against a repeat. The lack of health care for the second couple adds to the country's pain as those who have worked for this country are on the verge of receiving little. Yet, these problems receive rational proposals from the candidate.

While I found the arrangement awkward at times, i.e. the discussion of Obama's mother and his solution for Health Care should have been placed after the older couple whose wife needed insurance for arthritis and the husband, at age 72, worked at Wal-Mart, the production was excellent. As was the timing from the political ad to the live address in Florida. The conclusion of the "Closing Argument" speech is nicely done as well.

I am most impressed with his vision of democracy as it weakens a conception of elite democracy but does not engage in the anti-elite demagoguery that Palin and McCain expounds. While Obama may play an important role (at times narrator) most of the solutions will need the support of the main actors (the American people) in our drama of democracy. We see this with his discussion of the economy and education. Obama asked the American people to participate in government and, more importantly, in their own lives as the life of one presents consequences for another. The story of the American Democracy is the story of those who participate in whatever way they can...

Obama also argues where President Bush went wrong and offers a corrective reading on the American promise: in times of crisis, the people must sacrifice.

While the are many differences between Obama and McCain, he does not attack McCain, which makes McCain's post-ad attack seem childish, again. On Fox News, O'Reilly interviewed someone about William Ayers to make the case against Obama. At one point O'Reilly asked the former FBI agent why his testimony mattered. Exactly.

The critique of the ad will be that Obama is buying democracy. This argument seeks to weaken Obama's electoral authority, especially before the election. But this argument rests on conceptions of campaign finance and political equality that remain unmentoned by its advocates. It seems odd that those on the right criticize the aspects of capitalism they cannot control. Wait, did I say odd? I meant something else.

To Walt Whitman, who said, "Did you, too, O friend, suppose democracy was only for elections, for politics, and for a party name? I say democracy is only of use there that it may pass on and come to its flower and fruit in manners, in the highest forms of interaction between [people], and their beliefs -- in religion, literature, colleges and schools -- democracy in all public and private life...."May this vision return some day....