BARACK Obama relaunched his election campaign yesterday with a toughened-up image in an unprecedented two-minute advertisement broadcast across the United States.
His team is not revealing the cost, but it is likely to be the most expensive ever on US television in terms of airtime bought.
The commercial aimed to present an antidote to the glitzy adverts, relying on soundbites, that both sides have used up
to now.
Gone is the Obama of soaring rhetoric and swooning crowds. Instead, he appears by himself, in what appears to be a hotel room, in a commercial that is a cross between British party political broadcasts of old and the presidential addresses made from the White House during crises.
The tone is tough and combative. Crack down on lobbyists once and for all, Mr Obama intones, after listing the US's woes. "So their back-room deal-making no longer drowns out the voices of the middle class and undermines our common interests as Americans."
Mr Obama pins America's ills on a Bush administration in hock to special interests.
"This isn't just a string of bad luck," he says. "While you've been living up to your responsibilities, Washington has not."
The commercial is part of a re-vamping of the Obama brand, which has taken a pounding ever since the Republican candidate, John McCain, stole the limelight by choosing Sarah Palin as his running-mate.
The advert's timing is helped by the Wall Street meltdown, which has given the Democrats a gift-wrapped chance to regain lost momentum.
First, the banking collapse has finally provided a story big enough to get Mrs Palin off the front pages.
And, secondly, the meltdown plays to the central pitch of Mr Obama's campaign, which is that the US has been knocked off track by the Republican Party's embracing of special interests.
Mr Obama plays the sober realist, sounding almost professorial as he says: "I hope you'll read my economic plan." His tone suggests detention after school for those who don't.
His staff hope that the commercial will revive a campaign that has been stalled for weeks.
Yesterday, a Rassmussen survey gave Mr McCain a onepoint lead. A Reuters/Zogby poll put Mr Obama two ahead.
