More than 3 million large, glossy brochures detailing President Obama’s plan for his second term will be distributed in swing states before Election Day, presenting what Obama campaign officials say is a tangible, portable version of the president’s closing argument in the final two weeks of the 2012 campaign.
For those closely following the election and Obama’s economic and energy plans, there’s not much new in the brochure, entitled “The New Economic Patriotism: A Plan For Jobs & Middle Class Security.” But Team Obama says that’s the point.
On a conference call with reporters Tuesday, top Obama adviser David Axelrod said the brochure is a version of the plan Obama has been “running on and talking about for months in written form.”
Read the whole document here.
Axelrod said more than 3 million of the brochures will be distributed at Obama events and through the mail. The president held up a copy at his first post-debate rally in Florida Tuesday morning and urged supporters to go check it out online.
“I have laid out a plan for middle-class jobs and security,” Obama said. “Unlike Mitt Romney, I’ve actually proud to talk about what’s included — I’m actually proud to talk about what’s in it. The math in my plan adds up.”
The president stars in a new TV ad about the plan, which also debuted Tuesday:
The ad is set to run in New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin and Colorado.
Republicans have attacked Obama during debate season for what they say is a lack of specifics about what he’ll do in a second term. This line of attack reached it’s peak after the second debate, when Republicans — trying to seize a viral Romney moment for their own — accused the president of having “an empty binder” when it comes to policy.
The GOP is not appeased by Obama’s shiny new brochure.
“The Obama campaign today is publishing a glossy 20-page pamphlet that purports to be an agenda for a second term,” Romney policy director Lanhee Chen said in a statement. “But a glossy pamphlet two weeks before an election is no substitute for a real agenda for America.”
Axelrod said all the “empty binder” talk from the GOP didn’t prompt creation of the new broucure — or the new push to restate Obama’s second term agenda, including his focus on raising taxes on the rich.
“We’re in the closing argument of this campaign and we want to make sure that everybody is very focused on the specific things that the president is proposing,” Axelrod said. “Obviously a lot of people have made up there minds. There is a small universe of voters who haven’t and we want to make sure that those voters have access to the information they need to make the judgment.”
