Obama: Reviews of the new TV ad
Posted: Friday, June 20, 2008 9:07 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Here are the Democratic governors attending today’s economic meeting with Obama today in Chicago: Napolitano (AZ), Sebelius (KS), Richardson (NM), Gregoire (WA), Doyle (WI), Freudenthal (WY), Granholm (MI), O’Malley (MD), Baldacci (ME), Corzine (NJ), Paterson (NY), Strickland (OH), Kulongoski (OR), Rendell (PA), Manchin (WV), and Easley (NC).
VIDEO: A Race for the White House panel discusses Barack Obama's first general election ad.
The
Chicago Tribune says, however, that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich probably won’t attend. “An Obama spokesman confirmed Thursday afternoon that Blagojevich was invited along with all Democratic governors to the Friday event. A Blagojevich spokeswoman, however, said the governor likely will be heading to the downstate Metro East area to monitor rising flood waters.”
The New York Times says Obama’s new TV ad “tries to define Mr. Obama and his life story in the face of smear e-mail and Internet innuendo about his heritage, questions about his patriotism and accusations about his liberal record. It emphasizes his devotion to work, both personally and in his record, highlighting legislation that shows his compassion for working-class Americans and veterans — and his toughness with welfare recipients.”
It also provides this fact-check: “Mr. Obama refers to three bills that passed during his time in the Illinois Senate and in the United States Senate, and he did have a hand in passing all three. But he did not actually vote on the third bill, the National Defense Authorization Act, which passed overwhelmingly in January.”
The Boston Globe: "The 60-second spot, unveiled yesterday, shows him in an open-collared shirt and blazer, seated in a room with sunshine streaming through the doors as soft guitar music plays. It goes light on his biography as the son of a white mother from Kansas and black father from Kenya, and instead highlights his up-by-his-own-bootstraps story."
The New York Post adds that it "attempts to address his weaknesses among white working-class voters and others who have questioned his patriotism. It opens with the candidate, wearing an American flag pin, looking into the camera."
"Obama extended his personal apologies Thursday to two Muslim women who were nixed from sitting behind him at a Michigan event because they wore head scarfs," the New York Daily News writes. "'I spoke with Ms. Abdelfadeel, and expressed my deepest apologies for the incident that occurred,' Obama said in a statement. Obama, a Christian, has been the subject of rumors that he is a Muslim. The presidential candidate said the volunteers' actions 'were unacceptable and in no way reflect any policy of my campaign. I take deepest offense to and will continue to fight against discrimination against people of any religious group or background.'"
The day before Obama heads to Florida, the Miami Herald reports that the “great-uncle of Elián González plans Friday to publicly denounce two Barack Obama campaign advisors who helped send the boy back to his father in Cuba eight years ago… At issue are foreign-policy advisor Greg Craig, who represented Elián's father in the custody battle with the Miami relatives, and legal advisor Eric Holder, a member of Obama's vice-presidential search committee who was deputy attorney general when the 6-year-old boy was seized by federal agents and returned to Cuba.”
In a foregone conclusion, "Obama secured the endorsement of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a political powerhouse union that was a strong backer of his former Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton."
He also got the endorsement from the Sierra Club.
