Obama Strong in Closing Case

Barack Obama's 30-minute presentation this evening was an effort to reassure Americans about him as the potential president. He acted mostly as a narrator through most of the infomercial. He spoke in soft and mildly earnest tones backed up by music that underscored the same mood. The message was 'here is an intelligent, calm, caring man, a problem-solver you can rely on.'

The evident priority was to combat personal attacks coming from his Republican rival that seek to portray Obama as radical and risky, if not downright disloyal to the country. Obama opened by saying, "We've been talking about the same problems for decades. I'm going to offer you my specific solutions." He did this by highlighting four average American families and their struggles, to show he "gets it" and has real policy ideas that can help real people with common challenges.

Obama used the poignant story of his mother's losing battle with cancer and insurance companies to illustrate the need for health care reform. It would have been an awfully tough customer who wasn't affected by that approach to the problem.

Short testimonials from other leaders were woven into the narrative to reinforce Obama's points. The production oozed reassurance of Obama's personality and policy views. The wavering voter was given every permission to go ahead and vote for Obama. There are not too many of them left, perhaps six percent at this point. With the case made, the stage was set for Obama to close the sale.

The last two minutes cut to Obama appearing live at a rally in Florida with running mate Joe Biden. The reassuring tones on the ad seamlessly led into his exhortation to the crowd to take action. "In six days, we can choose to invest in health care for our families and education for our kids and renewable energy for our future. America, the time for change has come. In six days we can choose hope over fear, unity over division, the promise of change over the power of the status quo. In six days, we can come together as one nation, and one people, and once more choose our better history."

It was an appealing message presented in an appealing way. Obama ought to have every expectation this show will give him a bump of a point or two in the next couple of days. After that there will be only three campaign days remaining-not enough for Sen. McCain to erase the deficit he faces.