Obama's new ad is a very serious, very somber, and very long:
The atmospherics of the ad are probably smart. It's a better fit for the moment than another attack ad, or some announcer uttering bullet points while the camera zooms in on concerned looking parents from Heartland Central Casting. But Obama is still bad at talking about policy. The empathy portion of the spot -- the bit where Obama details the problem -- is fine. But the substance of the ad, the solutions, are a string of disconnected, and fairly unconvincing, sentences. "Reform our tax system to give a $1,000 tax break to the middle class, instead of showering more on oil companies and corporations that outsource our jobs." This woukld be fine if McCain were publicly advocating the "Oil Companies and Outsourcers Tax Cut of 2008," but as he won't admit to favoring these things, it just sounds like Obama is another politician promising Good Stuff, and no one really believes in Good Stuff. In contrast, watch this ad from Clinton in 1992:
