Senator Obama New Ad: The Women in His Life

Senator Barack Obama recently released a campaign ad airing on Philadelphia stations, serving southeast Pennsylvania. The ad runs for 30 seconds and features his half sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham and his wife, Michelle Obama. The script follows:

Senator Obama: "I'm Barack Obama and I approve this message."

Maya Soetoro-Ng (Obama's half sister): "People recognize themselves in Barack, and they feel understood by him. In part, that's because he listens so well."
Madelyn Dunham (Obama's grandmother): "Well, I think it's given him a lot of depth and a broadness of view."

Michelle Obama (Obama's wife): "Barack and I talk all the time about making sure that our girls can imagine any kind of world for themselves, with no barriers."
Soetoro-Ng: "He wants to make sure that everybody's children have the opportunities that his daughters have."

The key images: The ad opens with a still photo of Senator Obama kissing one of his daughters. As Soetoro-Ng speaks, images appear of Obama in small groups and hugging an elderly woman. His grandmother and wife speak on camera amid spliced footage of Senator Obama with his children and in a classroom talking to youngsters.

The goal: Senator Obama the family man. The ad provides a personal touch to Obama's image, continuing an ad mix in Pennsylvania that balances policy and biography. This is the first ad to feature some of the women in his life — an outreach to women voters who form a core support group for Senator Hillary Clinton, the other Democratic presidential nomination candidate. The ad also illustrates Senator Obama's diverse family tree. Soetoro-Ng's father was Indonesian, their grandmother is White and his wife is Black.

The ad serves as something of a public debut for Obama's grandmother — a woman some may only know because of Obama's reference to her during his speech on race. Then, he described her this way: "A woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of Black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."