Conservative SuperPAC American Crossroads will bombard battleground state airwaves over the final two weeks of the campaign, releasing a string of new ads aimed to sway undecided voters. The first spot stars iconic movie star and director Clint Eastwood, who's already made an indelible mark on the 2012 campaign:
This ad reportedly tested very well with focus group audiences. Next up is an ad hitting Obama's reckless borrowing and debt, with a focus on our largest foreign creditor. This commercial will air in five states, one of which -- unsurprisingly -- is Ohio. The take-away imagery isn't subtle:
It's been awhile since "you didn't build that" was a major theme of the presidential race, but this third spot resurrects it to some extent -- featuring small business owners explaining how the president's policies and regulations have strangled their livelihoods:
Finally, voters will meet the Oparowski family. People who followed the Republican National Convention closely will already be familiar with this story, but millions of Americans will hear it for the first time. This is a moving tribute to Mitt Romney's generosity of spirit and compassion, which could help solidify the Republican nominee's emerging (and once-improbable) personal favorability advantage over the incumbent:
In total, these ads will run across some combination of eight swing states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin. The spots have more than $16 million behind them, a massive buy that will ensure that a lot of eyeballs see the spots. The Romney campaign is also running a slew of ads, and is reportedly considering airing a 30-minute "documentary" commercial in the closing days. The Obama campaign is getting help of its own, too. A made-for-television movie about the Bin Laden raid is being re-edited to include more footage of the president (it will air two days before election day), and MTV will broadcast a half-hour interview with Obama on Friday. According to the New York Times, the Bin Laden film casts Mitt Romney as a villain who opposed the raid, which is untrue.
