This weekend, President Barack Obama will mark the beginning of his general election campaign with a series of rallies in the swing states of Virginia and Ohio; and in marking the start of the long campaign, the Obama campaign released a 7-minute long web video that lays out their themes going forward.
This decision is telegraphed in the very title of the video, “Forward,” which has been much mocked for seeming to borrow the same tagline as the left-leaning network MSNBC.
But the Obama video is almost entirely a look back, rather than a look into what the next four years could look like under a President Obama. The video never once mentions Mitt Romney, Mr. Obama’s opponent, and not until the final minute or so does it pivot to a look towards the future.
Instead, the video begins with a look at the past, before Mr. Obama took office, back when homes sales were falling quickly and the number of employed Americans just as fast. From there, the video makes the broad case for the Obama administration’s record, reminding voters battered by the daily news cycle how much the Obama administration has tackled.
The list, from their side, is lengthy: a stimulus that created million of jobs, the saving of the Big 3 auto companies, a rise in manufacturing, credit card reform, Wall Street, student loan reform, an increase in energy production, and oh yeas, health care reform.
The only problem of the last term, the video suggests is an intransigent Republican Party, one led by the likes of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, and ominous video of Tea Party protests is splashed across the screen.
Take a look:
