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New GOP ad goes hard at Obama

The GOP released an attack ad on Obama today.


While the ad is somewhat effective in painting Obama as an 'off the cuff' president focused on re-election as opposed to doing his job, I think the GOP are straying off track with their message.

The only thing that matters is JOBS.

Every time the GOP talk about something else they water down the resonant value of when they do talk about jobs.

The gutsy part of this video however was inserting George W. Bush in there and suggesting that even Bush took the job more seriously than Obama is taking it. It's clever in that most people now highly dislike Bush, so if you can somehow re-classify Obama as being in the "Bush league" of American Presidents, you start to chip away at the idolatry that Obama enjoys.

The ad is fair criticism in that I think it's possible, if not entirely likely, that Obama chose to go on The View as opposed to meet with world leaders because if he's going to be re-elected he has to shore up the women's vote and The View speaks to that audience.

Having said that, it's nothing but sideshow material. The GOP should be hammering the jobs message over and over.

In fact, what they should be doing is clipping together criticisms of Obama by prominent folks on the left, showing that many folks who are IN Obama's camp have been let down by his presidency.

For instance, Matt Damon, who is a progressive Liberal I believe, has bashed Obama regularly...


and this in contrast with the fact that Damon actively supported Obama in his 2008 campaign bid...


What the GOP needs to stay focused on is convincing people that it is OK to be upset with Obama. That's he's not the second coming and that he should be judged not based on his soaring rhetoric but rather his job performance.

So the GOP ad, while effective for what it was trying to do, is kind of off-track at the same time. Everything should be about jobs and the economy, because that's the only thing most voters will be thinking about when they cast their ballot.

To the extent that you do go off that message, it should only be to re-enforce a message that there are plenty of folks who have dissented from Obama who were his biggest supporters four years ago. This gives Obama supporters permission - allows them to give themselves permission - to cut loose of the Obama train.

As always, none of this means Romney will be any better, but from a PR perspective the GOP needs to focus 100 per cent of its messaging strategy on jobs and the economy to really have a chance at usurping Obama.

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