"But, except for the theater of the live finish from Florida, this was not Obama the inspirational orator.
Rather, the Obama who came into the homes of tens of millions of Americans less than a week before election day was a calm, reassuring, dare-we-say presidential figure speaking from a room that looked vaguely like the Oval Office.
He was self-deprecating -- "I will not be a perfect president."
He was self-referencing -- "I know what it's like to see a loved one suffer, not just because they are sick, but because of a broken health care system."
But he was, most of all, a candidate who wanted the people who are about to decide his political fate to know that he understands that there is really just one issue in the waning days of the 2008 campaign: an economy that is now officially in crisis but that long ago stopped working for millions of working Americans.
This was a commercial, to be sure.
But it was, as well, a statement. And Barack Obama's determination to make it the closing message of this long campaign will go a long way toward reassuring uncertain voters about the president he intends to be.
Most commercials aren't worth the thirty seconds it takes to watch them.
Obama's commercial is a thirty minute slice of an American story that was crying out to be told... and that Barack Obama heard.