President Barack Obama’s campaign team is using its first two 2012 campaign ads to recruit the volunteers needed to overcome the re-election hurdles of a stalled economy and low approval ratings.
“The 2012 campaign is underway, and the outcome will depend not on what I do, but on what you do. … Don’t sit this one out,” Obama says in one video.
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“It starts with one person making a decision — that things need to change, and they’re going to help change them, … and before long, neighborhoods come together,” he says in the second video.
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Obama’s focus on volunteers follows several acknowledgements during fundraisers that enthusiasm for him has declined. “I know that it’s not going to be exactly the same as when I was young and vibrant and new … let’s face it, it was cool to support me back then,” he said at a June 23 fundraiser in New York.
“Now I’m sort of old news … [but] if we’re able to work just as hard as we did in 2008, then I think we’re going to get through this very difficult time.”
The ads mark Obama’s announcement that his 2012 campaign has begun, following at least one year of quiet planing and organization-building, and after many months of campaign-style events that White House officials billed as routine political speeches. (RELATED: Obama’s 2012 campaign builds quiet momentum)
Largely out of sight, his Chicago-based campaign team has been hard at work. For example, the 2012 campaign has eight office in Iowa, and its volunteers made more than 200,000 calls to prospective supporters, according to a Nov. 26 report by National Public Radio.
The first two TV-ads will be run in small numbers on satellite channels, according to CBS news.
