New Hampshire is one of seven swing states targeted by a new two-minute television ad launched by the Obama campaign.
The ad, which began running Thursday, is titled, ‘Table.” It features a seated Obama speaking directly to the camera. The ad opens with Obama reminding voters that the country was at war with Iraq and losing 800,000 jobs a month when he took office.
He then warns potential voters that his Republican challenger Mitt Romney would reinstitute economic policies that many experts blame for the recession inherited by the Obama administration almost four years ago.
"Now, Governor Romney believes that with that even bigger tax cuts for the wealthy and fewer regulations on Wall Street all of us will prosper. In other words he’d double down on the same trickle down policies that led to the crisis in the first place."
The bulk of the ad describes a four-part plan the president says will "get folks back to work and make the middle class secure again."
That plan includes creating a million new manufacturing jobs; increasing investment in alternative-energy sources to reduce reliance on imported oil; and providing 2 million Americans with job training.
The president also promises to cut the budget deficit by four trillion dollars over the next decade by redirecting the savings from the withdrawal of troops in Afghanistan and by asking "the wealthy to pay a little more."
The new ad, which will also run Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia, is unusually long for this stage of the campaign. Candidates typically save longer, more-detailed pitches until much closer to the election in a last-ditch effort to reach undecided voters.
"Table" hit the airwaves one day after Romney released his own direct-to-camera appeal, a one-minute spot aimed at reversing the fall out from his recent comment that 47 percent of Americans are dependent on government.
Romney said that while both candidates shared concerns about the unemployed and struggling middle-class families, his plan "will make things better for them."
"My plan will create 12 million new jobs over the next four years — helping lift families out of poverty and strengthening the middle class.
The Obama campaign's latest 30-second ads have used Romney's 47-percent comments, captured at a Boca Raton, Fla, fundraiser in June, to draw the distinction between the candidates. "Table," on the other hand, is clearly an effort to maximize Obama's "likeability" advantage over Romney, while capitalizing on the Republican candidate's failure to generate enthusiasm for his economic plan.
On Thursday, a new poll of likely voters by NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist put Obama ahead of Romney, 51 percent to 44 percent, in New Hampshire.
More voters in the Granite State also said Obama would do a better job of handling the economy, by a 49 percent-46 percent margin. That's a reversal from a June poll of likely voters that favored Romney on the economy.
With less than a week to go before the first presidential debate, "Table" combines the president's strength as a communicator with his campaign's confidence that Romney's appeal to the average American will continue to wane.
The ad closes with Obama calling for "a new economic patriotism, rooted in the belief that growing our economy begins with a strong, thriving middle class. Read my plan. Compare it to Governor Romney’s and decide for yourself. Thanks for listening."