Excerpt from the Obama Informercial Video
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SUNRISE, Florida — Democrat Barack Obama hit White House rival John McCain with a prime-time TV onslaught, vowing to remake US fortunes at home and abroad, as the Republican countered with caustic character attacks six days from election day.
Obama delivered a 30-minute campaign pitch on national television, ending with a live cut to the thumping climax of a rally attended by 20,000 supporters here, on the final stretch of his bid to be America’s first black president.
The advert, which aired on three networks before a World Series baseball game at a cost of at least three million dollars, featured patriotic tropes, intensely personal moments and stories of real Americans struggling to make ends meet.
The 47-year-old Democrat, promoted in the broadcast as a loving family man who overcame hardship to reach the pinnacle of politics, pledged to remake the American Dream for all and safeguard the nation from foreign threats.
“We’ve seen over the last eight years how decisions by a president can have a profound effect on the course of history — and on American lives,” he said to camera, after shots of rolling wheat fields and the US countryside.
“But much that’s wrong in our country goes back even farther than that. We’ve been talking about the same problems for decades — and nothing is ever done to solve them,” Obama said.
“This election is a defining moment. The chance for our leaders to meet the demands of these challenging times and keep faith with our people,” he said.
“But everywhere I go, despite the economic crisis and war and uncertainty about tomorrow, I still see optimism. And hope. And strength."
McCain was unimpressed.
“When you’re watching this gauzy, feel-good commercial, just remember that it was paid for with broken promises,” he said, attacking Obama’s decision to opt out of public campaign financing.
En route to two rallies in the coveted prize of Florida, including his first joint event with former president Bill Clinton at midnight in Orlando, Obama said a vote for McCain would cripple the middle class and reward fat cats.
Addressing 28,000 supporters in Raleigh, North Carolina, Obama also derided his Republican opponent’s attacks on his own tax proposals as “socialism."
“By the end of the week, he’ll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten,” he said.
McCain, 72, was also campaigning in Florida where he renewed his attacks on Obama’s past links to 1960s radical Bill Ayers and lambasted his opponent’s credentials to be commander-in-chief. “I think this whole issue of the relationship with Bill Ayers needs to be known by the American people,” the Arizona senator told Spanish-language station Radio Mambi.
“Senator Obama said it was just a guy in the neighbourhood. We know much more than that."
Ayers was a member of the “Weathermen” movement which carried out a series of bombings to protest the Vietnam War, including on the Pentagon and US Capitol. Obama’s campaign say he has had no contact with Ayers since 2005.
McCain has desisted from mentioning Ayers in recent speeches, but his comments could signal a fresh onslaught on Obama’s character as the election campaign enters the finishing stretch.
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Source: TheTimes.co.za
