Four years ago, John Kerry didn’t have much of a closing theme. Supposedly, it was “JHOS” — shorthand for Jobs, Health Care, Opportunity and Security. Instead, Kerry spent the last week trying to make hay of a breaking story about loose munitions in Iraq.
Don’t expect the Obama campaign to repeat this mistake. Today, in fact, the campaign released a new, 2-minute video entitled “Defining Moment” which signals pretty strongly what their closing message will be:
The video contains all the elements you want in a closing message: General themes (change, reducing powerful interests, bringing the country together), mixed together with specific policy steps the candidate promises to take (tax policy, economic reform) … all delivered in a straight-to-the-camera appeal to the voters coming from the candidate himself.
