Obama Airs 30-Minute Spot, Releases Anti-Palin Ad

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Did Obama Score On Primetime?

Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz tells Harry Smith that the Barack Obama TV spot was well produced, but perhaps over produced in some ways.

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To demonstrate that his support is firm, Clinton gave four reasons to choose him:

He pointed to Obama's philosophy, policies, his ability to make a decision and his ability to execute that decision. Saying that Obama "represents the future" he called on the crowd to "find the people who are still teetering and wavering, and tell them why they ought to be with us."

Clinton asked the crowd to vote, and then go out and "find the people who are still teetering and wavering, and tell them why they ought to be with us."

The timing of the Obama-Clinton appearance is a tactic the campaign intends to repeat in the coming days. An aide said a central goal is to maximize face time on local news broadcasts -- and to cover as much ground as possible before he votes Tuesday in Chicago.

By the end of the day Saturday, Obama will have campaigned in eight states in four days, moving from North Carolina to Florida, then north to Virginia and west to Missouri, Iowa and Indiana. On Saturday, he plans to start in Nevada and finish in Colorado.

"It's campaign from dawn to dusk," the aide said. "We're campaigning as though we're five points down, to the very end."

The decision to bombard the airwaves on Wednesday and Thursday was grounded in the belief that, by Friday, much of the media coverage will be focused on the horse race and producing stories heavily influenced by the candidates' last-minute travels and maneuvers.

By Monday, Obama strategist David Axelrod said, it will be too late because the vast majority of voters will have chosen a candidate.

"At this stage," Obama told host Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show," "everything that needs to be said has probably been heard by a lot of voters, and what you want to do is just remind them one more time, 'Here's what I'm going to do,' not oversell, and let people make up their own minds."

McCain and the Republican National Committee made their own case, with ads that called Obama unready for the White House. One called him "risky." Another airing frequently in North Carolina shows stormy seas and asks, "What if this storm does get worse?" Perhaps most striking was a McCain spot arguing that the Democrat is not ready for the White House "yet."

The ad also mocks Obama's Internet-savvy campaign by finishing with the words "Barack Obama: untested."

Obama's newest 30-second advertisements directly target Palin after weeks of letting others question her credentials. The campaign links McCain's comments about the economy with the Alaska governor, who until last year was the mayor of a town of 6,000.