Opinion: Obama ad gets personal

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As our friends at the The Swamp point out, in recent speeches Barack Obama has been using his mother’s 1995 death from ovarian cancer as a lead-in to argue that he’s best suited to fix healthcare. Iowans tomorrow will see a new ad that takes the appeal one step further -- opening with a brief still image of his dead mother with a toddler-age Obama at her side.

The ad is aimed at affirming Obama’s theme that, despite his experience as an Illinois state legislator and his three years in the U.S. Senate, he’s a Washington outsider. And of course, a certain Democratic front-runner with her own healthcare policy baggage would, by contrast, be a Washington insider.

- Scott Martelle