Obama Big Bird ad: a mistake, or shrewd?
The Obama campaign released an ad Tuesday attacking GOP nominee Mitt Romney for promising to cut Big Bird鈥檚 federal funding. The spot engendered a fair bit of controversy, in case you haven鈥檛 heard. Was it a mistake? Or do Obama's strategists know what they're doing here?
First let鈥檚 look at itself. It鈥檚 a 30-second spot that opens with shots of Bernie Madoff and other felon financiers. 鈥淐riminals. Gluttons of greed,鈥� intones the ad鈥檚 narrator, in faux horror movie style.
鈥淎nd the evil genius who towered over them? One man has the guts to speak his name,鈥� continues the ad. It then cuts to Mitt Romney, saying 鈥淏ig Bird.鈥�
The giant feathered fellow himself then appears in a sort of montage of Sesame Street clips. The deep-voice narrator returns.
鈥淵ellow. A menace to our economy,鈥� he says. 鈥淢itt Romney knows it鈥檚 not Wall Street you have to worry about. It鈥檚 Sesame Street. Mitt Romney, taking on our enemies no matter where they nest.鈥�
Why was this controversial? Big Bird didn鈥檛 like it, for one thing. Or rather his creator and copyright owner Sesame Workshop didn鈥檛. They made it clear they hadn鈥檛 given permission to use their giant creature for political ends and asked the Obama campaign to pull the spot.
Sesame Workshop CEO Melvin Ming told the Abu Dhabi Media Summit on Wednesday that their request is 鈥渂eing considered.鈥�
鈥淲e as a nonprofit organization, we are non-political.... Our goal is to reach every child in America. We don鈥檛 contaminate that with anything,鈥� , according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Second, conservatives derided the ad as small-bore. The Obama campaign isn鈥檛 responding to the larger points Romney made in last week鈥檚 debate, writes Mark Hemingway Wednesday in The Weekly Standard. Instead it鈥檚 focused on empty ephemera, according to Hemingway.
鈥淎s strategic miscalculations go, the ad is pretty devastating,鈥� .
Finally, even some Democrats weren鈥檛 enthusiastic. They think Obama is chasing a shiny distraction while letting Romney get away with what they believe are larger distortions about his economic plan.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a diversion from the much bigger reality that any conceivable Romney/Ryan budget plan is going to hit a lot of accounts that are a lot bigger and more popular than PBS,鈥� writes liberal Ed Kilgore on the blog at The Washington Monthly.
Well, we have a couple of points to make. The first is that campaigns know a lot more about their target audiences then they publicly discuss. If the Obama campaign is releasing a Big Bird ad, it鈥檚 probably because they have focus group data from the debate that shows voters responded negatively to that point in particular. The idea didn鈥檛 just pop into strategists鈥� heads. It could be part of a larger plan to try and solidify, say, the votes of stay-at-home moms. (Or dads 鈥� we鈥檝e seen more Elmo ourselves then we care to remember.)
But right now, does that matter? It鈥檚 possible this ad might have been more effective later in the campaign. The reality is that last week鈥檚 debate appears to have been a game-changing moment. It has coincided with perhaps the largest poll swings of the entire 2012 campaign. Romney now leads in the RealClearPolitics by 0.8 percentage points. Ten days ago Obama led by 4.3.
Throughout this election cycle, at every moment when it appeared Barack Obama鈥檚 poll lead would succumb to gravity and Romney would catch up, the Obama team has countered with a major effort, writes RealClearPolitics senior election analyst . In June, for example, the Obama team fought back against a newly-nominated and rising Romney by filling the airwaves with anti-Bain ads.
The current decline in Obama鈥檚 ratings is just such a moment. Yet the Obama team has already exploited Romney鈥檚 鈥�47 percent鈥� comments about the percentage of Americans who see themselves as victims. The campaign鈥檚 Big Bird stuff just isn鈥檛 that big, politically-speaking.
鈥淚s there anything else it can use to push back against the natural trajectory of the race?鈥� writes Trende. 鈥淲e鈥檒l find out, and if we get a few more polls like the Pew poll [which showed a 4-point Romney lead], I suspect that we will find out sooner rather than later.鈥�
