In light of today’s one-year anniversary of the raid on Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound, the Obama campaign team released a 90-second ad highlighting the President’s decision to go forth with the mission. The ad features a rosy-cheeked Bill Clinton commending the hard and fast decisions of the president, as well as iterating the difficulty of being commander-in-chief. Despite its intentions to sway voters towards Obama, the tasteless direction of the ad has the potential to do the opposite.
The ad derives its momentum indiscreetly from smearing Romney and glorifying Obama’s choice to take down bin Laden. Whether or not this choice was a good one, the needless politicization of this decision is more divisive than uniting. It seems to be an obvious and gaudy ploy to woo voters far removed from his base, highlighting one of his greatest triumphs.
The Huffington Post’s Arianna Huffington has contributed to the dialogue by referring to the Obama campaign’s ad as “despicable.” Even the members of Seal Team Six have criticized the president’s campaign for “using them as ammunition” to further his political ambitions. The true error in the campaign strategy lies in the fact that it takes a serious and sensitive foreign policy decision and makes light of it, reducing its importance to a mere accolade of Barack Obama.
More than anything, the ad reveals a huge difference between 2008 and 2012 Obama. “Change You Can Believe In” has evolved into “Hey, Remember When I Killed Bin Laden,” masqueraded as the new slogan rolled out yesterday — “Forward.” Without focusing on issues such as health care reform, Obama chooses an issue that seems to reveal more similarities between the two candidates than differences. The past statements the campaign unearthed from Romney are former positions taken by Obama himself, and as Romney correctly asserted in his response today, even Jimmy Carter would have approved that mission.
It is clear that the progressive wing of Obama’s base, without a better alternative, won’t waver no matter how far Obama attempts to appease the other side. As such, this may very well turn out to be a calculated, effective ad. Regardless of its efficacy, it is possible the president will pay for this campaign’s misstep.