Obama campaign unveils trailer for promotional re-election film

Eight months before voters decide whether or not to give President Obama another four years in power, his re-election team wants to remind them of what life was like three years ago.

The Obama campaign on Thursday unveiled a trailer for a documentary-style film chronicling the work of the Obama administration's first three years in office.

Titled, "The Road We've Traveled," the 17-minute film was produced by Davis Guggenheim, who directed Mr. Obama's infomercial released just before the 2008 election and former Vice President Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth."

To be released on March 15th, the movie includes interviews with top advisers talking about the challenges they faced coming into office and what actions they took in response.

"Do we look at the days headlines, or do we remember what we as a country have been through," the narrator, actor Tom Hanks, intones at the beginning of the trailer.

Former top economic aide Austan Goolsbee recalls a meeting with his top advisers on the economy that Mr. Obama convened shortly after defeating Sen. John McCain but before taking office on January 20, 2009.

"What was described in that meeting was an economic crisis beyond anything anybody had imagined," said David Axelrod, identified in the film as a former senior White House adviser. He is now a top strategist for the Obama campaign.

The clip also highlights Vice President Joe Biden, recounting how the president made the decision to send U.S. forces to get Osama bin Laden.

"He's all alone. This is his decision and nobody is standing there with him," Biden said of the moment before Mr. Obama gave the greenlight for special forces to go after bin Laden.

Meet the biggest backers of the 2012 campaign.

[jdaryyl]

I hope they:

Talk about the version of the NDAA he signed into law on December 31st which says I can be detained by our military indefinatly without trial.

And that his administration, as of 2-8-2011, has now made congress a non-factor in the use of our military to around the world. The UN can now send our kids off to be killed.

I also would like to see some coverage of all the friendly drone bomb regime changing he loves so much.

[RobAla]

I bet you won't see any of this in his fairy tale commercial:

1) He lied 8 times in promises to televise the health care discussions openly on CSPAN.
2) He made deals giving one premium health care plan to union members (supporters) and another to the rest of the country.
3) He stood by and allowed the House and Senate to buy health care votes using taxpayer money.
4) He allowed the health care bills to be fashioned behind closed doors and be filled with political favors. This disaster of a health care law increases the cost of health care by imposing fees on medical devices (like pacemakers). He and they took over the nations health care by the federal government - most Americans did not want this extreme action - and still do not. This horrible law will cause the majority of Americans to have higher health care cost in rising premiums. We already can not afford the size federal government that we currently have, with a $16 trillion national debt. It imposes $billions of unfunded mandates on struggling states to provide greater Medicaid coverage. 27 states are suing the federal government over this nonsense, as they don't have the money to pay for this. Businesses are not hiring because of the additional cost PER EMPLOYEE that is caused by this law.
5) President Obama has continued at least a 8% unemployment rate for three years.
6) He irresponsibly overspent 100s of billions of dollars the US didn't have on bailouts (President Bush started it and President Obama accelerated it) and bogus stimulus packages. Progressives in Congress have refused to do their jobs to allow a national budget be established since 2009.
7) President Obama has behaved in the most partisan manner of any recent President, after promising bipartisanship. He has arrogantly trashed everyone who has not agreed with his socialist agenda - even the Supreme Court.
8) Instead of securing the border and enforcing federal immigration laws, the President has made war on Arizona Americans as they attempt to protect themselves from an invasion of illegal immigrants.
9) The President's man, AG Holder, dropped his case against the Black Panthers who blatantly intimidated voters at the polls. Now, Holder may finally be kicked out over "Fast and Furious" - the program that sold guns to Mexican cartels, guns used to kill a US border agent.
10) This President has focused on an extremist agenda of "fundamentally transforming" the US from a democratic republic into a socialist democracy, instead of the millions without jobs. We are all witnessing the collapse of European socialist democracies, yet this does nothing to stop this President from pushing us down that road to disaster.
11) President Obama imposed a moratorium on drilling in the gulf, throwing thousands more out of work. One foreign oil company screwed up, and the President decided to punish other oil companies that have drilled responsibly for decades.
12) President Obama wanted the President Bush tax cuts to expire, which would have resulted in redirecting money away from the economy and pushing it into Washington. The President held on to this until he was forced to change by the pounding the Democrats took in the 2010 election. Still, he promises to increase taxes next year.
13) The President and other progressives in Congress have imposed oppressive additional expenses and regulations on private sector businesses that are crippling the private sector jobs market, while expanding the federal government and public sector jobs. Anyone with any economic sense knows that you need tax revenues from a healthy private sector jobs market to fund public sector expansions, and the money is just not there.
14) With gas prices rising and projected to hit record levels by summer 2012, President Obama stops the Canadian pipeline deal that would reduce the US dependence on middle- eastern oil. His entire energy policy is idiotic, and leaves the US damaged. His impractical policies have included pumping public funds into "green energy" companies that have gone bankrupt, and even GM recently announced it will discontinue the manufacturing of the Volt electric car - they are unable to sell them.
15) In President Obama's 2012 budget, he never addressed serious issues threatening the future of the nation (like the fact that if Medicare and Social Security are not restructured, they both are projected to collapse by 2037). In fact, in the face of a staggering $16 trillion national debt - he proposed that we add another $trillion to it.

Just to name a few. The perfect word for President Obama is "irresponsible".

[RobAla]

Politicians usually put on this kind of promotion when they are running for an office for the first time - before they have a record to run on. That's the point - President Obama can not run on his terrible record and horrible policies.

[gwwelch]

Let's hope the movie "2016" about what another four years of an Obama presidency will bring comes out this summer.

[Northforker]

CNN calls this a "documentary". Documentaries use facts to tell a story about a situation or event. This is a feel good film, like "Bambi". This is an infomercial, They should have used Vince the shamwow guy for a narrator. Shame on you Tom Hanks. Obama, one and done 2012

[RobAla]

It's because CNN is basically a voluntary arm of the Democrat party. They used to say that CCN stood for the Clinton News Network. President Obama can not honestly run on the facts of his horrible record or his disastrous policies - he has to make a fairly tell pep rally commercial. He has no choice.

[AmericanMe1]

I bet Obama and cronies left out "Hope and Change" and "Yes we can" on this political trailer for obvious reasons.
What's the new message or slogan for 2012?

A "Fair and Equal" America for every citizen except for us progressive rich elitists in power.
How about 'A mindless bliss Utopia"' where you don't care about your rights being mandated away.

[AOCGUY]

I realize that it is unlikely, in the extreme, that there could actually be a civil discussion of an issue on this site. But the usage of wild and clearly false labels in an effort to attack anyone that might disagree with a position one holds adds nothing to the dialog, generally gives the rest of us the impression the poster doesn't really have a firm grasp on the subject, and quite often only encourages others to respond in kind.

[WilliamBayer]

The film highlights the decision to go in after Bin Ladin? Sounds like Obama's running as a republican. Hope it also highlights Obama's previous promise to close GITMO while running for election in 2008, the fact that GITMO is still in business in 2012, and the law that Obama recently signed authorizing American citizens to be sent to GITMO. Obama would make a much better republican candidate than Romney --- but who are those of us that don't want to vote for a republican expected to vote for this NOvember? Will the film answer THAT question?

[jose_z1]

9.1% UNEMPLOYMENT
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.
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[AOCGUY]

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment dropped in January to 8.3% (the lowest since Obama took office)

[AOCGUY]

So, pray tell, what unblemished source do you cite? Or did you just make that number up?

[TJphoto]

It's all Obama's fault! The sky is falling! Vote for Republicans, they have the people's best interests at heart. They will not pay any attention to corporate special interests. All that talk about them tanking the economy are democratic lies. It's all Obama's fault! The sky is falling!

[JonnySeeGood]

That's run for the hills, break out the bible and pray. Pray for the second coming. Its our only chance. Only God can save us from the demons.