Ad with former Obama backers deemed most effective

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

This article originally appeared on RealClearPolitics.

(CBS News) TAMPA - With swing-state denizens facing 10 more weeks of campaign ad bombardment, the conservative advocacy organization Americans for Prosperity may be cutting through the clutter most effectively with its relatively low-key attacks on President Obama.

That, at least, was the clear verdict offered by 23 Florida voters on Sunday during a focus group convened by Republican pollster and strategist Frank Luntz.

Almost everyone in the group said they voted for Obama in 2008, but they were about evenly split between Obama and Mitt Romney in the 2012 race, with several still undecided.

Luntz showed the group more than a dozen negative TV ads funded by both presidential campaigns and outside groups and asked participants to rate on a scale of zero to 100 the impact of each ad, regardless of which candidate they are leaning toward.

A majority pointed to a 60-second AFP spot -- which has been running in swing states as part of a reported $27 million advertising blitz by the Koch brothers-backed group -- as the most effective ad of the current cycle.

In the ad, voters who cast their ballots for Obama four years ago speak directly to the camera about why they would not make the same decision in 2012. "He said he was going to cut the deficit in his first term; I've seen zero interest in reducing spending," one man says. "He inherited a bad situation, but he made it worse."

The ad made an especially strong impression on registered Republicans in the Luntz focus group, but registered Democrats and participants who said that they intended to vote for Obama again also gave it high marks.

Asked what they liked about it, several cited the relatively subdued tone and the effectiveness of featuring "real people" instead of actors or politicians.

"They basically said exactly what I'm thinking," one of the participants said of those featured in the ad.

"I can almost see myself in that ad," another added. "It seemed the most real."

One female voter in the ad praises Obama as a "great person" but in the same breath questions his ability to lead the country.

Republican Convention 2012: complete coverage

It's a line of thought that Romney himself often echoed until recently and one that seemed to make a strong impact on the participants in Tampa, many of whom expressed continued personal admiration for the president during the two-hour session.

"They're telling you not to vote for Obama pretty much, but it's not in a personal, negative way," one focus group member said of the ad's approach.

Luntz told a small group of journalists who watched the proceedings from behind a one-way mirror that the AFP ad has been deemed the most effective by every focus group he has conducted around the country in recent months.

By contrast, an American Crossroads spot that featured Obama interacting with various celebrities and mockingly referring to him as "one cool president" registered particularly low with the focus group.

AFP announced on Friday that it was expanding its current TV advertising blitz by an additional $6 million and recently launched a new spot featuring an additional slate of 2008 Obama voters speaking straight into the camera about their disappointment with the president.

Only four of Sunday's 23 focus group participants said ads being run by Obama and his allies are more effective, on the whole, than the ones that the Romney campaign and pro-Romney groups are airing.

The most impactful anti-Romney spot was deemed to be a 60-second ad funded by the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA, in which a man who worked at a plant that was taken over by Bain Capital and later closed recalls being ordered to build a stage that was then used by managers to announce that he had and others were losing their jobs.

"Mitt Romney made over a hundred million dollars by shutting down our plant and devastated our lives," the man in the ad says. "Turns out that when we built that stage, it was like building my own coffin."

Though most in the group had a negative overall impression of the economy, the room was split about evenly when Luntz asked whether it was getting better or worse.

The call for more bipartisanship was a common theme expressed throughout the session, and when asked to offer a word or phrase to describe politics in America today, "a mess," "just absolutely disgusting," and "petty ideologues" were among the most vivid responses.

No one in the group said he or she had a favorable view of the current Congress, although many said that they personally liked their own representative in the U.S. House.

Two of the participants identified themselves as conservative, one as liberal, and the other 20 said they were moderate.

Only eight said they were personally better off now than they were four years ago, but several indicated that they are unsure how much they can trust Romney.

The GOP nominee's refusal to release more than two years of income tax returns appeared to be a significant issue for many of them.

"I'd like to see tax returns from 10 years ago," one participant said. "I'm sure he did not violate the law, but I think he needs to come clean."

[Martha12345]

All the lies and broken promises are coming back to roost, Mr. President. Your time is up.

[retmw1]

So are all of romney and ryans lies going to come to roost?

[FrancineBow]

You people who credit Obama for the stock market need to get a clue. The only reason it's up is because of Bernanke's quantitative easing. In the long run he is taxing every American regardless of income by devaluing the dollar. Tell that to the poverty stricken family that doesn't even have a 401K. Your dollar is really only worth 78 cents. Obama is a disaster. He's done nothing but decimate the middle class and increase the poverty level.

[wfw3536]

I am not surprised that this ad is doing well compared to the Obama campaign of dirt. It is really sad when Obama approves an ad that claims Romney was responsible for a man's wife death after he lost his job six years earlier. Now Obama says he didn't know anything about it, yet Ms Cutter a top Obama campaign chief is caught on tape interviewing this same man. How low can the Obama campaign go.

[RollotheNorman]

Its all staged. That's what you do when you make an ad, stage it. Or they do it over and over until they get the group and comments they want and through the rest away. RepubliCONs are the brand leaders in lying, BS ads, have been every since Lee Atwater, may he fry in Hell.

[superdem1]

I've seen that ad, no one asks these "average people" what their 401(k) was worth under Bush, and what it's worth NOW - no one asks them what the stock market was under Bush and what it is NOW - no one asks them what the Republicans did to HELP President Obama the last four years (absolutely NOTHING), no one asks them what Romney would do that would help anything, oh no, it's just OBAMA is a FAILURE. So it's a totally false ad, I bet none of these people voted for Obama in the first place. If they did, they are stupid to think the Republicans have any answers. It's all just big money B.S. meant to confuse people and hurt the President.

[GOP-R--Con-Men]

Republicans are rigging the elections trying to steal it with these unnecessary VOTER I.D. LAWS and they had yet to pay the appropriate price for subverting our constitution and democracy. The media print, video and digital are complicit in allowing this. The media and our government would be shouting what republicans are doing at every chance if this were going on in country of one of our enemies. But it's accepted because it's happening here in America?

HELL NO! Republicans must be held to account for this attack to subvert our democracy. Republicans should be attacked by libertarians, liberals, conservatives, tea partiers and other groups in addition to the media for subverting our right to vote.

[Augy-Doggie]

The reason it is most effective is because millions of Americans who gave Obama a chance feel the same way. Obama just wasn't up to the job and never will be.
The ad was too easy on Obama and the lies he told and the way he has conducted himself is outrageous and treacherous to all who disagree with him
All he did was spend us into debt, campaign from the day he took office for a second term and blame others for his missteps and failures and refuses to ever accept responsibility for his actions.

I think the guy has an extremely flawed character and disagree with people he has fooled into thinking he is a nice guy.
I would never want meet him or be in the same room without telling him off for the lowlife that he really is.
He is nothing but a arrested developmental Man-Child.

[Augy-Doggie]

johnnyhouston

Zion is one of those people who will not admit he picked the wrong person and the more truthful the comment is about Obama the more desperately he spams and distracts from his mistake called Obama.

[audemus]

The right parade former Obama supporters around like they were some kind of attraction in a side-show. "Step right up and see the freak...."

Anyone who has decided not to vote for Obama based on the notion that he's somehow to blame for the sorry state of affairs he inherited, should fit in very well with the "republican" party. Ignorance loves company.

[Augy-Doggie]

They didn't ingest the tainted Kool Aid you did and is that why you attack them for being reasonable.
You are the one with the problem, not them.

[audemus]

Augy-....At least most of us are not so lost in denial that we would use the word "reasonable" to describe republicans....that word would be more like "delusional."

[CaptainSmollett]

"U.S. sales of weapons to foreign buyers rose to a record $66.3 billion in 2011, triple the amount from 2010, the Congressional Research Service said. The U.S. accounts for three-quarters of the world's weapons sales."

Well, so much for Obama being the champion of world peace. Another campaign lie?

[parrot2-2009]

yea - you know the president personally sold those weapons ..... Logic like yours, would blame Isaac on the POTUS. Dumb Dumb Repugs!!

[WHAT-IS-HE-SMOKING]

"WASHINGTON — Weapons sales by the United States tripled in 2011 to a record high, driven by major arms sales to Persian Gulf allies concerned about Iran's regional ambitions, according to a new study for Congress.
Overseas weapons sales by the United States totaled $66.3 billion last year, or more than three-quarters of the global arms market, valued at $85.3 billion in 2011. Russia was a distant second, with $4.8 billion in deals. "

So you would much rather let Russia or China sell the arms to our allies? What about all the jobs that are linked with these sales?