Barack Obama's half-hour TV pitch scored with writers on the left—though one found it embarrassing to admit to being seduced by an infomercial—while those on the right were turned off:
- Saying it was hardly the "gauzy, feel-good commercial," McCain labeled it in advance, John Nichols of the Nation found it an effective expression of empathy for a hurting populace. “Obama presented a chronicle of despair,” he writes, telling stories that were "crying to be told."