Barack Obama: Liberal

Who will raise taxes on the middle class? Barack Obama and the liberals already have. To pay for government-run healthcare, you’ll pay higher taxes and more for your medicine. And their plan includes a trillion dollars in higher taxes – even on the middle class. Mitt Romney and common-sense conservatives will cut taxes on the middle class. And they’ll close loopholes for millionaires. Obama and his liberal allies? We can’t afford four more years.

It’s very effective ad, and not only because it raises Obamacare, which remains unpopular, and reminds voters that they’ll be taxed more to pay for this unpopular program. It also works because it makes the case against the president in a directly ideological way. And though such an ideological attack will not likely appeal to reporters covering the campaign or non-ideological Republican consultants (there are lots of them), it may well appeal to voters–the vast majority of whom do not think of themselves as liberals.

The spot is an RNC/Romney hybrid ad, which means it has to include a general critique of Democrats in addition to its targeted attack on Obama. The ad is part of a nearly $6 million buy and it is running in Colorado, Florida, Ohio and Virginia–meaning voters in several of the most important swing states are seeing this critique of Obama on ideological grounds. That’s a smart move.