Consultants React to Obama’s Re-election Announcement

President Obama launched his re-election campaign Monday morning with the release of a Web video.
The video features the president only briefly, showing him speaking to a crowd and, on television, winning the Iowa caucus. Instead, it focuses on Obama supporters describing their experience volunteering and voting for him—or, in the case of a twenty-year-old supporter, wishing they could have voted for him.
 
“Basically, I think the video is aiming right at Obama’s base,” says Aaron Beytin, a partner at the Beytin Agency, a Democratic direct mail firm. Beytin says that the Obama campaign is trying to reenergize its base while allowing the president to appear that he is above the messy business of campaigning. “That is the basic direction they are going with this, and I think that makes sense.”
 
Another Democrat, Michael Bronstein, a partner with the direct mail firm Bronstein & Weaver, agrees. “It looks like they are trying to energize the movement-oriented Obama Democrats in the grassroots,” he says. “For that, it is a fairly effective piece.”
 
Many of the volunteers featured in the video are from swing states that featured prominently in the “wider map” that Obama pioneered in 2008. There is “Gladys” from Nevada, “Ed” from North Carolina, and “Katherine” from Colorado. “Ed from North Carolina is a white guy from North Carolina, which is clearly a voter they need,” says Bronstein. “He appeared a couple of times, which I thought was an interesting marketing exercise.”
 
Democratic and Republican consultants agreed that the Web announcement will probably be effective at reenergizing the base. Republican consultants, however, did not see it as an effective ad for doing much more than that. “It does not say a thing,” says Adam Geller, president of the Republican polling firm National Research, Inc.
 
Jeff Roe, president and founder of the Republican campaign management firm Axiom Strategies, says the piece is well made, but was surprised that “Ed” from North Carolina said that he doesn’t agree with Obama on everything. “That struck me; this white middle-America guy saying they don’t agree with Obama,” says Roe, adding that in his view this is the Obama team’s way of acknowledging that the president has alienated members of his base as well as independent voters over the last two years. “That is quite an admission for an opening salvo puff-piece.”
 
Brian Tringali, a partner at the Republican polling firm Tarrance Group, says that the Web video hit the right tone for Obama’s base, but finds it intriguing that the president did not appear in the ad more. He also thought it was curious that there were no references to what Obama has accomplished over the last two years or to what he hopes to accomplish in a second term.
 
“That has to be the job of the Republican presidential nominee,” says Tringali. “[Obama] didn’t get forced into explaining what change means in his previous campaign and he seems to be avoiding it in this one as well.”
 Noah Rothman is the online editor at C&E. E-mail him at nrothman@campaignsandelections.com