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Rocky Mountain News

By Mike Littwin

It was, after all, an infomercial, even if an infomercial like none you'd ever seen before.

Meaning that, in the end, no one was asking you to buy Time- Life's Greatest Hits of the '70s, Volume 7 (including, for an additional $19.99, a look back at the Carpenters, the Early Years).

For 30 minutes, in prime time, on virtually every network except the Golf Channel, Barack Obama was simply selling Barack Obama.

The maddening thing for John McCain has to be how easy the sale is starting to look - see: RealClearPolitics.com list of polls to get an idea of just how easy - and how the momentum keeps going Obama's way.

This was big money - the money McCain doesn't have, the money Obama raises after refusing to take matching campaign funds. He had money to spend on 30 minutes designed to do just one thing - to assure the doubters that he looked the part of being president. And so, he would look presidential talking about the economy. And he would look presidential talking about health care. And he would look presidential telling the stories of ordinary, middle-class American citizens from, yes, many of your American swing states.

And he looked presidential when the wheat - I swear, the infomercial opened with acres and acres of wheat - was doing what wheat does, waving over those oh-so-golden plains.

This was 30 minutes of high-class production values, which told you little that you didn't know before but which offered you 30 minutes of feeling comfortable watching Obama from your living room, 30 minutes of campaign speech and autobiography and touching photos with his kids and with his mom.

And those 30 minutes were just the beginning. He was on later Wednesday night with Jon Stewart. And as I write this, a big crowd is forming in Kissimmee, Fla., where Obama and Bill Clinton, together at last, will pretend that they like each other. There's your real World Series of politics.

The infomercial was much lower key. It was all very soft lighting and very soft sell. There was not a negative note, except about the tough times coming to you courtesy of the last eight years.

If the film looked expensive, it was expensive - costing $4 million just to broadcast it and probably as much for the very American soundtrack. This wasn't Ross Perot with his flow charts. This was what America does best - selling you the indispensable product, and then cutting to a live shot before a cheering crowd in Florida.

Some people were worried about Obama overkill, as if Americans weren't equipped with remote control. But here was the real risk: The film was, if anything (observation courtesy of Newsweek's Richard Wolfe), too perfect. Obama said, late in the broadcast, that he wasn't a perfect man and wouldn't be a perfect president. But that didn't mean he didn't look perfect saying it.

It was no coincidence that Obama shot the infomercial from a place meant to evoke that Oval Office feel. It had everything but the faux seal. The message was clear: You get to decide whether Obama belongs there.

If you watch cable TV news, you know there is much talk these days of whether the so-called Bradley Effect will kick in on Election Day. The Bradley Effect dates back to a 1982 California gubernatorial race, in which some white people supposedly told pollsters they would vote for the black candidate so as not to seem racist - but pulled the lever for the white candidate on Election Day.

Some people doubt the Bradley Effect ever existed. In any case, I'm pretty sure that this is now 2008 and that it doesn't exist any more.

Certainly, you have no problem finding people willing to criticize Obama. If there are people who think he's a terrorist schmoozer or a closet socialist - I mean, other than Sarah Palin - they just say so. And, besides, the last thing anyone would worry about these days is offending the sensibilities of a pollster.

In fact, there seems to be little concern about anyone's sensibilities, or else you wouldn't see Palin hanging in effigy somewhere in West Hollywood. (Naturally, in a matter of days, there were several Obama-effigy-in-a-noose sightings as, I guess, retaliation.)

OK, race is certainly still a major factor in American life and in American politics, but, clearly, it's not the factor. I saw Spike Lee - who made the classic movie on race, Do the Right Thing, only 20 years ago - talking on MSNBC about how young people today have rejected racism. It's as obvious as the playlist on your kid's iPod.

Just ask the kid about "white guilt" and watch the what-are-you- talking-about-dude look come over his or her face.

And those of us a little older now see black presidents in movies and black presidents on TV shows and aren't surprised to see a black presidential candidate in a campaign infomercial.

We're to the point, in fact, that Obama goes on Jon Stewart - as part of the Wednesday night blitz - and they joke about the Bradley Effect. This would be, as far as I know, a first in late-night political-candidate humor.

"They've been saying that for a while, but we're still here," Obama said, adding, "I don't think white voters have gotten this memo about the Bradley Effect."

Stewart wondered if Obama's white half might go into the voting booth and suddenly say to himself, "I can't do this."

"It's a problem," Obama answered. "I've been going through therapy to make sure I vote properly on the 4th."

Actually, it shouldn't be a problem. If he gets confused, he can just take a DVD of a very convincing infomercial into the booth with him.

Originally published by Mike Littwin, Rocky Mountain News.

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