WASHINGTON – Facing attacks on his character from some particularly aggressive and well-financed opponents, President Barack Obama had the first broadcast television advert of his presidential re-election campaign.
To advertise so early in an election year is unusual, but it reflects the new reality of presidential politics, with large, anonymous amounts of money flowing into groups that can pay for potentially devastating advertising.
The president’s campaign commercial is striking not only for its timing but for its sharply defensive tone toward a very specific target.
Without mentioning them by name, it takes on Charles and David Koch, the wealthy conservative businessmen who have opposed Mr Obama through the political action committee, Americans for Prosperity.
Americans for Prosperity said this week it would run a $6 million national advertising campaign that portrays the president as running a pay-to-play government.
It attacks him in a commercial that highlights the Solyndra scandal, which involved a solar power company with ties to the Obama administration that declared bankruptcy after receiving more than $500 million in federal money.
The Obama campaign responded hastily. It placed orders for television time on Wednesday in four states that could prove pivotal in the election: Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia. It opens with a shot at the Koch brothers.
“Secretive oil billionaires attacking President Obama with ads, fact checkers say are not tethered to the facts,” an announcer says over the low chords of a piano as an image from the Americans for Prosperity advertisement plays in the background.
"Independent watchdogs call this president's record on ethics unprecedented," the advertisement continues. "President Obama kept his promise to toughen ethics rules and strengthen America's energy economy." – (New York Times)