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Obama for America

"It Begins with Us" +
 2:09 web video from April 4, 2011.

[Music] Ed, North Carolina: Well it seems like the last couple of elections that we've had have been almost kind of turning point campaigns.

Gladys, Nevada: Kind of nervous about it.  It's like it's coming.  Here it is.  2012, the election.

Katherine, Colorado: I think it needs to reflect the changes that we've seen in the last 2 1/2 years.  Then we had an underdog Senator.  Nobody thought that he had a chance, and now he's the President.

Mark, New York: I just saw the energy and hope that he had for this country.  Even though I couldn't exactly vote at the time, I knew that someday I'd be able to help re-elect him.  And that's what I plan on doing.

Gladys: We're not leaving it up to chance; we're not leaving it up to oh, you know, the incumbent.  The type of thing is an election that we have to win.

Alice, Michigan: And unfortunately President Obama's one person.  He cannot go—plus he got a job, you know, we're paying him to do a job so we can't say hey could you just take some time off and come and get us all energized.  So we better figure it out.

Ed: I can't not be involved.  There's just too much that is fundamentally important right now that's going on.

Gladys: As a community we all have the same concerns.  We all want our kids to go to school and learn, we want them to graduate, we want jobs to be out there, we want people to have homes, we want people to have opportunity.

Ed: I don't agree with Obama on everything, but I respect him and I trust him.

Gladys: There are so many things that are still on the table that need to be addressed, and we want them to be addressed by President Obama.

Katherine: I had this perception that politics was all show, it was all soundbites, but politics is how we govern ourselves.  That's what politics is.  At the grassroots level it's individuals talking to other individuals and making a difference.

[Music, graphics]

Notes: This first communication from the re-election campaign features ordinary folks, including a good demographic mix and people from a few key states, conveying the message that they are ready to get to work on the campaign.  Obama is not heard and is shown only very briefly (clip from 2007 announcement speech, photo in Iowa caucus results TV image, and glimpse of stylized Shephard Fairey image in the background behind phone banker).  Ed, the man who opens the video, is from North Carolina, where Democrats have also chosen to hold their convention.  The person who has biggest role in the video, Gladys, is from the swing state of Nevada.  Also interesting are the first seven seconds of the video, before the narration starts; following the opening image of the field, a church is shown, and then a neighborhood scene with a flag.