Political Advertisement

Nobody would deny the fact that political advertisement aims at exerting influence on public opinion. Typically, featured candidates convey their values and beliefs through logic argumentation and emotional appeal, which creates a powerful and pervasive effect upon voters. In this light, political advertisements are crafted not only to persuade readers or viewers but also inform about the candidate’s political agenda. Hence, residents can objectively decide who of representatives is worth their votes. In the paper, an attempt has been made to discuss and critically analyze Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential advertisement.

The political advertisement features the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, speaking directly to the camera thereby addressing personally to the audience. The nominee strongly emphasizes the fact that voters have to make an important choice. Notably, he claims that it is not just the choice between candidates or political parties but between plans for the country’s economic development. Republican economic vision is strongly criticized for its inadequacy and ineffectiveness. According to the candidate, Romney’s polices would put the middle class in a vulnerable position, undermining job creation and availability. The Democratic nominee concludes that the most appropriate approach is to concentrate the efforts on growth of the middle class, while investing in education and manufacturing (BarackObama.com, 2012).

The presidential campaign advertisement was aired on televisions, which allowed reaching wider electorate as opposed to the print media. This commercial is designed for America TV Ad and was aired in battleground states, such as Florida, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio, New Hampshire, Colorado, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia. All political commercials in this election cycle costed Obama around a half billion dollars (Siddiqui, 2012).

The main message is that Obama’s plan will help to strengthen the middles class and contribute significantly to the economic recovery. Solid investments in manufacturing and education will also help in this regard. The main line of the thought is that the middle class presents the largest part of the American society, and hence, should drive the economic change. Unlike Republican policy, Obama believes that wealthy people should pay according to their incomes, so that it will become possible to pay the national debt in a balanced way.

The purpose of the following commercial is to underline the difference between Obama’s political agenda and that of his Republican opponent. Needless to say, disturbing facts about the opponent’s plan create the image of a wealthy and out-of-date politician, who does not care deeply about the middle class’ well-being. However, Barack Obama shifts from the negative messaging at the end of the commercial. Thus, he heavily focuses on the favorable aspects of his plan, which adds the trustworthiness to his words. His claims about employing the down-top approach leave viewers feeling good about his vision.

It becomes abundantly clear that the target audience is the middle class, who urgently needs job opportunities and low taxes policy. The underlying argument is that voting for Obama would mean a considerable step in improving the wealth of an average American resident. The Democratic candidate addresses the main concerns and fears of the middle class, such as education and taxes. The following discourse appeals to the electorate’s current anxiety as Obama demonstrates what could happen if Romney is elected.

The presented political advertisement proved to be effective since Barack Obama was elected to a second term. Such important issues as economic recovery and job creation were brought to the surface, so that the majority of the middle class gave their votes to support this policy. Overall, this commercial positively affected the political process. The level of absenteeism was critically low because the advertisement powerfully emphasized the importance of choice. Therefore, the importance and effectiveness of the commercial in presidential campaign should not be doubted.

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