"New Obama Ad Airs in Iowa" (with video)

NY Times political blog, The Caucus with video (01:01).

If any Iowa voters missed Senator Barack Obama’s speech at the Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Des Moines last month — widely seen as a turning point in his campaign –­ they can catch it on television.

Mr. Obama’s campaign has used footage from the speech for a new 60-second spot to begin airing in Iowa.

“We are in a defining moment in our history,” he says in the ad, as the crowd cheers and the music swells. “Our nation is at war. The planet is in peril. The dream that so many generations fought for feels as if it’s slowly slipping away.

“And that is why the same old Washington textbook campaigns just won’t do. That’s why telling the American people what we think they want to hear instead of telling the American people what they need to hear just won’t do. America, our moment is now.”

In a swipe at Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mr. Obama says: “I don’t want to spend the next year, or the next four years, re-fighting the same fights that we had in the 1990’s.”

Throughout the ad, in between video clips, a black screen flashes with mini-testimonials (“For Obama, it’s not politics as usual,” says the Cedar Rapids Gazette).

And the spot ends with those all-important instructions: “Barack Obama for President. Caucus January 3rd.”

Barack Obama