TPM posted a story about this ad which is running now in Ohio, showing that Obama is already taking on Hillary head to head in what is supposed to be one of her firewall states. I think that is a smart strategy.
But there is something else about this ad that I think is very smart, and which I would like to see more Democrats everywhere adopt more.
At the end, it does not just give Obama's web site and campaign phone number, but it also gives the correct date and times for voting in that state. I am sure that Obama's campaign knows that a prime vote suppression technique (especially often used against african-americans in poor neighborhoods) is to spread misinformation about the time and date of the election. While this is something that can help bring out more of Obama's (likely) voters in the primary, it is also a smart strategy to help get more Dem-likely voters out in the general election.
I'd like to think that we have seen this often enough--the push polling, the fake robocalling, the ugly last-minute smears-- that our candidates would know that developing pre-emptive strategies against such tactics would be a smart move. I'd like to see if we could start a discussion about this, collecting known past techniques, and also collecting ideas for smart ways to counter them. I think this Obama ad shows a very simple but smart way of combatting one.
(Note, I'm sure he is not the very first person to put all that info in an ad, I'm just using it to hilight a point because it's brand new).
Edit: wow, just like that my first time on the rec list, thanks everyone :)
Since this is getting attention, though, I really would like to see more people (not just Obama supporters) chiming in on what we can do to pre-emptively combat voter suppression techniques.