President Obama's re-election campaign unveiled a new video this morning, which has a similar look and feel to the recent "The Road We've Traveled" documentary, but features a different message and messenger.
Note, for example, that aside from some brief narration at the beginning, the only voice in this video is Elizabeth Warren's, the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate in Massachusetts. That's interesting in and of itself -- the campaign clearly sees Warren as a key progressive voice, with enormous credibility on these issues, particularly with the Democratic Party's base.
And the fact that shining a spotlight on Warren during his very competitive race probably doesn't hurt the party's larger goals, either.
But also note the message of the video itself. Whereas the recently-released documentary was largely focused on reminding the public about the severity of the crash Obama inherited from his Republican predecessor, and the improvements seen over the last few years, the message of this video is looking forward. As Warren says in the clip:
"This next election is about the direction our country takes. It's about whether or not we are going to be a people who say, 'I got mine; the rest of you are on your own,' or whether we're going to be a people who say, 'We can invest in our future.'"And we can build a real future for ourselves and for our kids, so that when the next kid comes up with a good idea, they got a shot to make it big, and so does the kid after that and the kid after that."This election is going to affect everyone. We really have come to real choice and what our future looks like is going to be very different depending on who's governing."
In effect, this is a bookend message to last week's documentary video. It's not about reminding voters about the steps taken to rescue the country from economic ruin; it's about urging voters not to go backwards.
In a way, they're two sides to the same coin, but it's worth watching to see how the Obama campaign pushes both messages at the same time.