Moments following the terrifying Obama logo in motion that concluded tonight’s look deep into the heartland of people who voted for Hillary Clinton, Mike and I headed off to the Torch office per usual to deride Barack Obama.

To the surprise of no one, the level of discourse in the comments on YouTube has been at its usual magnificent peak. It would have been so much better if they had just done the song.

A few additional thoughts on the spot:

Gallup says only about 4% of voters are truly undecided at this point, so the ad tonight functioned more as reinforcement, with shades of a GOTV. In that capacity, the rate of return here can’t be all that bad; Obama had the money to do something like this, and considering the high production values and message clearly tailored to middle class voters in the Rust Belt, the ad was successful in conveying several of Obama’s specific policy goals while maintaining positivity free from attacking McCain. We’ll know tomorrow how many people actually viewed it, but in the meantime, Obama succeeded in that pursuit
Clearly, the economy, jobs, and outsourcing were the thrust of the ad; each of the family stories brought up outsourcing in some way or another, and his tax plan. Now, politically, the branding of the Bush tax cuts with deregulation has done the GOP no favors. But it seems between Joe the Plumber and the revelation (…the video’s a little vague actually for “revelation”) that Obama has eyed massive redistributionist policies in the past, McCain’s up a little on taxes and the economy according to Rasmussen. McCain still won’t be, even on the off-chance he’s elected, a powerful economic force.

So, regardless, while I’m not happy per se where an Obama presidency will take us economically (capital gains increases, a refusal to move jobs overseas at the expense of American industry as a whole, free trade agreements denied), I’d feel considerably better about the entire enterprise if the subject of Iraq hadn’t been used as a segue to talk about domestic energy production. He briefly discussed direct diplomacy as well, but only in the context of “failed” Bush policies. I mean, not that I expected a dissertation on realist political theory or anything tonight, I just expected a little more.

We’ll likely elect the man president, though, and some part of me is hoping the extended infomercial failed not out of distaste for Obama but for this reason:

“This is a bad precedent to set for future campaigns. At some point, they’re just going to raise enough money to purchase all of the airtime on a major network for the two days leading up to the election. Then, they’ll compete. Then, they’ll get their own 24-7 networks. Then, Fahrenheit 451, but by then, we’ll be glad to watch our informational materials burn. At least that would be one less medium they could use to contact us about the finer points of their tax policies.”

I have no problem with Obama actually buying the air time (free markets!), just a little concerned after this exhausting election cycle where it’s all headed.

Katherine Miller is a junior at Vanderbilt University. She blogs daily at Right-Wing Vitriol.