About This Ad

» Candidate/Organization: Barack Obama
» Other Candidates Mentioned: John McCain
» Year: 2008
» State: Pennsylvania
» Race: Presidential
» Party: Democratic
» Funded by: Candidate
» Disseminations: TV

Ad Content

» Cues: A Common Man/Woman, factory, Industrial Building, Music, Narrator, Old Video Footage, On-screen Writing, Outdoors, workers
» Issues: Economy, Jobs, Taxes
» Tone: Negative
» Types: Attack
» Music: Ominous
» Characters: "Real People"
» Narrator: Male
» Language: English

Analysis

By The Trail: The Obama campaign's advertising folks have been busy in recent days, releasing several messages about immigration and the economy. One of the ads, airing in Pennsylvania and other battleground states, blames John McCain for the loss of hundreds of jobs at a Corning plant in State College, Penn. "The workers are rehired to disassemble the plant. And ship the equipment to China," says the ad's announcer. "Washington sold them out. With the help of people like John McCain. He supported tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. And voted against cracking down on China for unfair trade practices. We can't afford more of the same." Corning closed its State College plant in 2004 and then rehired many workers to pack up most of the plant's equipment and ship it to China, an incident mentioned by a few presidential candidates over the course of the primary campaign. The ad cites three votes McCain cast in 1995, 2004 and 2005 in support of "tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas." It also cites McCain's 2005 vote against a measure that would have cracked down on China for manipulating its currency. The Obama campaign has circulated a report by the Economic Policy Institute that reports the U.S. has lost 1.7 million jobs due to the U.S.-China trade deficit, with 78,200 jobs lost in Pennsylvania. "Barack Obama has no record of reforming government and does not know how to fix the current crisis, so he's going on the attack," RNC spokesman Alex Conant said in response. "Pennsylvanians rejected Obama's name calling and false attacks this spring, and they'll do it again this fall," he added, citing Obama's loss to Hillary Clinton in the commonwealth's Democratic primary last April. More...