Obama Ad: No Return to 1990s

Cornell College students listen to Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., back to camera, left, speaks during a campaign stop, Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2007, in Mount Vernon, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) (Charlie Neibergall - AP)

-- TITLE: "Moment."

LENGTH: 60 seconds

AIRING: Iowa

SCRIPT: Obama voiceover: "I'm Barack Obama and I approve this message."

Obama on stage: "We are in a defining moment in our history. Our nation is at war. The planet is in peril. The dream that so many generations fought for feels as if it's slowly slipping away. And that is why the same old Washington textbook campaigns just won't do. That's why telling the American people what we think they want to hear instead of telling the American people what they need to hear just won't do. America, our moment is now. I don't want to spend the next year, or the next four years, refighting the same fights we had in the 1990s. I don't want to pit red America against blue America. I want to be president of the UNITED States of America."

KEY IMAGES: Obama in dark suit and tie addressing the Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner in Des Moines, Iowa. Images of rapt audience members, mostly white middle-aged or older women. A shot of the crowd sitting amid signposts of Iowa counties, giving the audience the look of a political convention. Selected quotes from media accounts are superimposed over a black screen. "For Obama, it's not politics as usual," from the Cedar Rapids Gazette. "Scrupulous honesty," from Time magazine's Joe Klein. "Across the Divide," from Newsweek.

ANALYSIS: The ad captures the essence of Obama's speech during last month's dinner, the Iowa Democratic Party's biggest annual fundraiser and a showcase for presidential candidates. Obama received rave reviews for his address, quieting critics who said his campaign had failed to reprise the gracefulness and unifying voice he displayed more than three years ago as the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention.

The message in 2004 was one of unity, of breaking with the partisan divisions that Democrats said President Bush and the Republican Party had fostered.

This time, the theme is the same, but Obama aims it at Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Without mentioning her name, the ad's message is clear. The close-ups of women in the audience represent Clinton's base of support, but here they are seemingly moved by Obama's words. When Obama says that "telling the American people what we think they want to hear instead of telling the American people what they need to hear just won't do," he's trying to exploit polling data that indicates many voters find Clinton insincere. And when he says, "I don't want to spend the next year, or the next four years, refighting the same fights we had in the 1990s," the reference is apparently the former first lady and the partisan passions she and President Clinton ignited.

The ad, 60 seconds rather than the more common 30 seconds, tries to draw emotion with a crescendo of music, applause and Obama's own rising voice. In the last presidential election, women constituted a majority of Democratic primary voters. And the Obama campaign has long believed that women will be drawn to a candidate who speaks against polarizing politics.