Barack Obama’s Biggest Issue… Big Bird

Since last week’s presidential debate, President Obama has used thirteen occasions on the campaign trail to focus on of all things… Big Bird.  With mocking tones and dimwitted characterizations, Barack Obama has been spending most of his time trying to get  to reelected by joking about Mitt Romney’s one time mention to cut money for things like Big Bird from the federal budget.  The remark was initially made during the first presidential debate and the the reference to Big Bird was a symbolic one in reference to funding of public broadcasting.  Meanwhile the President has so far made more than thirteen references to Sesame Street characters on the campaign trail but he has mentioned real issues like the terrorist attacks that killed 4 Americans in Libya zero times.

Now his campaign has dedicated its time, energy, and money to a 30 second commercial that centers around of all things… Big Bird. (See the ad below this post)

The ad is so utterly over the top that viewers initially mistake it for a parody from late night programming like Leno, or maybe the Cobert Report.

While the 30 second spot tries to follow a line of humor that mocks Romney for his intended cut of federal funding of PBS, the ad actually ends up seeming to go too far in trying to focus voters an issue that is too ridiculous for the President to be wasting our time with.  It is is so much ado about nothing that commercial’s silliness ends up backfiring and casting a shadow of silliness on his campaign and a shadow of doubt over the President and his priorities.

Dana Perino, George W. Bush’s former White House Press Secretary suggested that this new Obama ad probably came about after someone on the Obama campaign became over excited by the prospects of using the line that Romney is more worried about Sesame Street than Wall Street and so they turned it in to this ad.   But Perino also suggests that the ad is so absurd and over the top that it undermined whatever potential the Sesame Street versus Wall Street soundbite may have once had.    Perino is right.