As the hardworking staff has often said (Self-Plagiarism Alert!), political advertising is the Art of the Passable: How far can you go without alienating the viewing public?

Despite a new study that found attack ads by Super PACs are more effective than official campaign ads (via Mediaite), Obama for America is doing its own dirty work. It launched this ad on the QT last week, airing it in the key swing states of  Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Florida and New Hampshire (the hardworking staff saw it on WCVB, which has pretty good penetration in the Granite State).

Good Guy Obama: I’m  connected to the middle class. Bad Guy Obama: Mitt Romney’s connected to billionaires – and disconnected from the truth.

The problem for Obama is even these 50-50 ads are going to chip away at his good-guy image eventually. Too bad he doesn’t have a few billionaire allies to spend millions to distort Romney’s words. And replace his own.