Here is Barack Obama’s first television commercial for the general election campaign:

Chris Bowers did an interesting content analysis, putting “conservative frames” in bold and underlining “progressive frames”:

The progressive frames include non-traditional family background, a community approach to governing, valuing service over Wall Street, and implications about increasing health care and opposing trade deals that hurt working families. The conservative frames are equally abundant, with talk of “self-reliance,” “heartland,” cutting taxes, “welfare,” and lots of emphasis on values and country.

I wonder if the ad is too muddled in order to be effective. While both progressives and conservatives will hear frames that they like in the ad, everyone will also hear things that they don’t like. Fundamentally the ad is chasing after both types of voters instead of trying to persuade them. Overall, it might end up leaving a mixed impression.

To me it was just a bland, introductory biographical ad. I didn’t find it particularly good or bad.

According to Marc Ambinder, the ad will run in 18 states:

Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Virginia

Interesting to see him being aggressive in places like Alaska, Montana, Georgia and North Dakota. I give him virtually zero chance of winning any of those states (and only a very slim chance of taking Missouri), but maybe he’s just trying to scare McCain into spending money and time there.

I don’t know why Obama would need to run this ad in Iowa, where people viewed many of his ads for months last year. John McCain has virtually no organization in this state and should not be a threat.

If it runs in the Omaha/Council Bluffs market, then Obama could make inroads in Nebraska’s first and second Congressional districts. Nebraska awards one electoral vote to the winner of each Congressional district and two to the statewide winner, so Obama may have a chance to pick up one or two electoral votes here.

What do you think of the ad’s content and placement?