Crossroads GPS, the nonprofit affiliate of Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, will go up on air Wednesday with a new ad to push the idea that President Obama has failed to help American families, reports the New York Times. More subtle than ads which call the president radical or argue that he lacks integrity, the team at Crossroads determined that the most effective attack on Obama was to strike a softer, disappointed tone.
The new ad will air in 10 swing states as the “centerpiece” of the group’s $25 million on air offensive this month and will likely be, according to the Times, “one of the most heavily broadcast political commercials of this phase of the general election.”
Called “Basketball,” the ad features a mother who’s worried because her adult children have moved home after being unable to find jobs.
“I always loved watching the kids play basketball,” says the actress playing a mother. “I still do, even though things have changed.” Now the woman morphs into an older version of herself, and her children change from kids to adults. “I supported President Obama because he spoke so beautifully,” she says. “He promised change. But things changed for the worse.”
The 1-minute ad continues with the woman discussing how Obama failed by enacting health care reform and ballooning the national debt.
The inspiration for the ad came from numerous focus groups. From the Times story:
In interviews with voters, Crossroads strategists picked up on some common sentiments that they concluded could provide a clear rationale for voters to deny Mr. Obama a second term.
Some said they felt that the president was an eloquent communicator, but that his actions had failed to live up to his words. They said they thought the country’s budget problems had gotten out of hand, yet the government kept spending recklessly — like someone with maxed-out credit cards. And they reported being worried that their children would not have the same opportunities to get ahead as they had.
All these thoughts made their way into Mr. McCarthy’s script. But one exchange in particular, at a focus group in St. Louis in October, gave Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Law the idea for the ad, which they named, innocuously enough, “Basketball.”
A woman described how her 32-year-old son, burdened by student loans and unable to make ends meet, had moved back home. “That particular group had several women who basically told the same story,” Mr. McCarthy said.
