Will Obama's Infomercial Backfire?

Obama’s 30-minute advertisement aired on three major networks tonight, and Jeanne Cummings of Politico asks whether it risks going too far. Well, according to the experts she asked, not really. “I don’t see any risk at all,” says Mike Murphy, a former McCain adviser, while another Republican strategist, Alex Castellanos, compares it to football. “People may complain that a team is running up the score, but that team is still the one that wins.” Democratic strategist Jim Jordan says it will particularly help Obama with late-deciding female voters and another Dem strategist says it probably won’t aggravate channel surfers, with all the other options on cable these days. The biggest advantage, according to the founder of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, is “it probably locks up 24 hours of the news cycle.” With only seven days to go, “it’s going to suck a lot of oxygen out of the room.”