Obama Explains in 60 Seconds Why You’re Better Off Today than You Were 4 Years Ago

Last updated on February 7th, 2013 at 04:41 pm

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The Obama campaign answered Mitt Romney’s are you better off question with a devastating 60 second reply showing Americans exactly why they are better off today than they were four years ago.

Here is the video:

Here is the ad script:

BARACK OBAMA: “I’m Barack Obama and I approve this message.

VOICEOVER: “He keeps saying it.”

MITT ROMNEY: “This President cannot tell us that you’re better off today than when he took office.”

VOICEOVER: “Well, here’s where we were in 2008:”

BRIAN WILLIAMS: “Worst financial collapse since the great depression.”

LESTER HOLT: “American workers were laid off in numbers not seen in over three decades.”

VOICEOVER: “And here’s where we are today. 30 months of private sector job growth. Creating 4.6 million new jobs. We’re not there yet. But the real question is: Whose plan is better for you? The President’s plan asks millionaires to pay a little more to help invest in a strong middle class, clean energy, and cut the deficit. Mitt Romney’s plan? A new two-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar tax break for multi-millionaires. Roll back regulations on the banks that cratered the economy, and raise taxes on the middle class.”

BILL CLINTON: “They want to go back to the same old policies that got us in trouble in the first place.”

BARACK OBAMA: “We’re not going back, we are moving forward.”

VOICEOVER: “Forward.”

This may be the best ad yet that the Obama campaign has put out. The ad balances reminding people where we were in 2008 with where we are in 2012. It is also contains some subtle contrasts that are very effective. By linking Romney’s plan for the economy to the collapse of 2008 while using Bill Clinton to link Obama’s growth to past prosperity, the Obama campaign is sending the message to voters that Romney will undo the progress that has been made under this president. The second contrast involves the repetition of the word forward at the end of the ad. The message is clear. Obama equals forward. Romney equals backward.

That is a very simple point to deliver to voters. Obama is telling voters that if they want the economy to keep getting better, they should reelect him. This argument works for the president because polling shows that by a wide margin voters blame Bush and the Republican Party for the current state of the economy.

The Obama campaign did something in sixty seconds that the Romney campaign has never been able to do. They explained why people should vote for them. Mitt Romney is so intent on making this election a referendum on President Obama that he has not bothered to tell anyone why they should vote for him.

The problem for Romney is that the Obama campaign has has successfully turned this election into a choice between two candidates, and we are heading into the homestretch, the president is defining what they choice is.

Mitt Romney left Obama an opening with the are you better off question, and the president walked right through it and slammed the door shut behind him.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association