Obama’s Throwback Appeal for Early Voting

The Obama campaign is now rolling out a flurry of targeted videos and viral efforts to promote voter turnout.

In Michigan, the campaign tapped the rapper Jay-Z for an instructional YouTube video about state laws, so that first-time voters would know that an I.D. is not required in the state.

Now for Florida. On Monday morning, the campaign unveiled an irreverent, old-fashioned advertisement to mark the beginning of early voting and to promote a dedicated hotline for Sen. Barack Obama supporters in Florida:

PRODUCTION NOTES: The high-tech campaign gets low-tech in this whimsical footage of Florida as a “space-aged land of modernity.” Early voting, which is still a mystery to many young and first-time voters, is presented as the latest technological breakthrough on Florida’s frontier. The upbeat score adds to the feeling of a 1950s infomercial gone haywire.