The Republican National Committee is up with a new radio ad in eight battleground states that channels two classic political messages: Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America” line and the ageless attack on politicians for going on vacation.
Running ahead of President Obama’s jobs speech to a joint session of Congress this week, the ad casts the address as more of the same from a man who desperately needs the economy to get going again.
“It’s Morning Again in America. Is Barack Obama finally waking up?” the ad’s narrator says. “After a 10-day luxury vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, the President says he’ll finally get serious about jobs.”
Attacking politicians for recreating is as old as political attacks themselves. President Bush — who vacationed a lot more than Obama has, to be sure — was under constant attack from his critics for his trips away from Washington. His White House, just like Obama’s, defended the trips by saying any president is never truly off-duty, and a vacation is really just a chance to get the daily briefings from people not wearing ties.
As for the morning in America thing, it’s interesting that the RNC chose to use a line most associated with Reagan’s optimism to double down on the Republican view that the nation is worse off than it has been in quite a while.
Check out the full script:
It’s Morning Again in AmericaIs Barack Obama finally waking up?
After a 10-day luxury vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, the President says he’ll finally get serious about jobs.
But we’ve heard this before…
After his 825 Billion Dollar Stimulus Debacle…
And after his 2.5 Trillion dollar government-run health care plan…
Now again, after our national credit has been downgraded.
But what can we expect from Obama’s new Stimulus plan?
More spending.
We’ve already tried that; causing unemployment to shoot up and our deficit to balloon.
In fact, before this ad is done, our debt will have grown by an additional two and a half million dollars.
Enough is enough…
Let’s change direction.
The Republican National Committee is responsible for the content of this advertisement.
Here’s an MP3 of the audio, hosted on the RNC’s website. The ad will run in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina and Michigan in the lead-up to Obama’s job speech.
Evan McMorris-Santoro
Evan McMorris-Santoro has covered politics for TPM since 2009. Before that, he was a reporter at National Journal’s Hotline covering election 2008. He started his career covering local politics at newspapers in TN and his native NC.
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