Obama’s eleventh-hour pitch: His ‘morning again in America’

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan's re-election campaign unleashed an ad declaring "It's morning again in America." It asked voters, "Why would we ever want to return to where we were less than four short years ago?"

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama's re-election campaign released its version of (homage to?) that classic piece of political messaging, a 60-second ad called "Determination," in which the embattled incumbent makes the case that the still-sputtering economy is getting better. "We're not there yet. But we've made real progress and the last thing we should do is turn back now," Obama says in the commercial. The ad, part of the Democrat's frenetic closing arguments to persuadable voters, runs in the battleground states of New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nevada and Colorado, according to his campaign.

"There's just no 'quit' in America. And you're seeing that right now," the president also says in the video, in which he speaks directly to the camera. "Over 5 million new jobs, exports up 41 percent, home values rising, our auto industry back."

(The campaign also released a 19-page booklet titled "The New Economic Patriotism," a theme Obama has sounded before. It repackages his jobs plan and other policies as part of an effort to counter charges that he has not clearly spelled out what he would do with another four years in the White House.)

"Here's my plan for the next four years," he also says in the ad. "Making education and training a national priority, building on our manufacturing boom, boosting American-made energy, reducing the deficits responsibly by cutting where we can, and asking the wealthy to pay a little more. And ending the war in Afghanistan, so we can do some nation building here at home. That's the right path.

"It's an honor to be your president. And I'm asking for your vote, so together we can keep moving America forward."

Chris Moody contributed to this report.