We've Come Too Far to Turn Back Now: Obama's New Video is the War Cry of Election 2012
Let’s call it right now: The final, brutal, stretch of election 2012 starts today.
This election hasn’t exactly been a hugely exciting one. There has been no 2008-esque Obama vs. Hillary down-to-the wire primary battle. There has been no real are-you-freaking-kidding-me-? Sarah Palin VP pick-esque moment. Heck, I don’t even know what the central issue in election 2012 is (jobs seems like an obvious choice, but neither candidate has hammered home any sort of trademark policy stance on the economy … or on any other issue in general).
If election 2012 is a Super Bowl football championship game, both teams are running a very boring and frankly ineffective ground game, hardly making big plays, not scoring, and punting often.
And Obama has been the worst of it. Sure he has a job to do and a country to run, but the Obama campaign strategy has seemingly been to sit back and watch election 2012 sort itself out. He hasn't been a go-getter. He hasn’t really pushed big policies (support of gay marriage came and went); he hasn’t made huge decisions, at home or abroad (um, so what exactly are we going to do in Syria? And is hydro-fracking a go or a no-go?); he hasn’t really, directly, unmercilessly, even lashed out at Romney.
Election 2012 has been a waiting game.
But now the fun is beginning … the moment we’ve all been waiting for. In political media colloquialism, each candidate over the last week has gotten himself 100% into “campaign mode.” It started with Romney finally picking his vice presidential running-mate in Paul Ryan last Saturday … and it starts with Obama announcing that “we’ve come too far to turn back now.”
Here’s the war-cry:
Democrat or Republican, it jacks you up, right? The message opens kind of hesitant, like Obama is talking in a tone like he knows that he hasn’t given his best the last four years. He’s almost asking – begging – for a second chance.
Then he really turns the “inspire” dial to max.
“We’ve got too much work to do …”
… in health care.
… to create jobs.
… to fix education.
… to fix our infrastructure.
… to figure out our energy situation.
… to figure out our international relations issues.
The video is almost like a preview of the Obama: The Movie sequel. It gives a quick glimpse at some of the things the president may have been soft on over his first-term, things he’d like to fix moving forward.
Then the video ends with an awesome call to action: “I still believe in you, and if you believe in me … we will finish what we started.”
And just like that President Obama has become Candidate Obama.
The fourth quarter of election 2012 has started.