Obama takes a new tone.

Apparently, he's gotten the message that nastily attacking Romney isn't working. Here's his new ad, in which he actually seems kind of like Romney:



Text:

Over the next four months you have a choice to make. Not just between two political parties or even two people. It's a choice between two very different plans for our country. Governor Romney's plan would cut taxes for the folks at the very top, roll back regulations on big banks, and he says that if we do our economy will grow and everyone will benefit. But you know what? We tried that top-down approach. It's what caused the mess in the first place.

Top-down? I think "top-down" is a better descriptor of the Obama preference for using the federal government to solve problems. A preference for the free market is bottom up.

I believe the only way to create an economy built to last is to strengthen the middle class. Asking the wealthy to pay a little more so we can pay down our debt in a balanced way. So that we can afford to invest in education, manufacturing, and homegrown American energy for good middle class jobs. Sometimes politics can seem very small. But the choice you face, it couldn't be bigger.

This feels like making the argument for Romney: an economy built to last... the middle class... pay down our debt... invest in education, manufacturing, and homegrown American energy....

Snuck in there is the old Obama theme: tax the rich. It's camouflaged within a lot of Romneyesque pro-capitalism talk. I think the Obama people have decided that lefty edge is a loser. Americans will chose capitalism over socialism if you make it stark. So he's repackaging himself as moderate. He's still saying "two very different plans for our country," but not pick capitalism or socialism, which is about what it was sounding like when he resorted to the "you didn't build that" rhetoric.

Carter Eskew says:

The extra expense to buy time to air a 60-second ad — instead of the usual 30-second unit lengths — usually means a campaign has a pressing need. What is Obama’s? Is it that his negative ads have reached the end of their usefulness, and it is time to present the alternative? Or did the ads overstay their welcome and begin to backfire? The campaign’s own polling — vastly more regular and extensive than the media’s — likely has the answer.