President Barack Obama's re-election campaign has been releasing ads courting demographic groups—like Latino voters—among whom he enjoys a wide lead over Mitt Romney. On Thursday, Team Obama launched the first in what it dubbed "a series" aimed at women.
"The son of a single mom …" (with a photo of baby Barack in his mother's arms). "Proud father of two daughters" (with a photo of the president all smiles with Malia and Sasha). "President Obama knows that women being paid 77 cents on the dollar for doing the same work as men isn't just unfair … It hurts families."
The ad zeroes in on Obama signing the Lilly Ledbetter Act into law in January 2009, shortly after taking office. The measure—the first he signed as president—extended the statute of limitations for women to be able to sue their employers for pay disparities based on gender.
Obama isn't in any serious danger of losing female voters. A late-May ABC News poll found that his edge in approval over Romney among women had shrunk but was still 51 percent to 40 percent. But the Democrat's campaign isn't leaving anything to chance as it works to reassemble the coalition that powered his historic 2008 victory. The sputtering economic recovery has not made that an easy task.Romney and fellow Republicans have been hammering away at the theme that women have suffered greatly in the economic downturn. Democrats have responded by charging that Republicans are waging a "war on women" while also highlighting actions Obama has taken that chiefly benefit women.
The new ad, dubbed "First Law," will air in the battleground states of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia.