Barack Obama's campaign is already out with an ad based on the vice presidential debate -- specifically, Sarah Palin's inability to defend John McCain's health care plan. The clip uses Joe Biden's line that the McCain-Palin health care plan is a "bridge to nowhere." Watch:
The Politico reports that the ad is part of a broader health-care focused strategy:
Obama's aides said the campaign would key in not on something Palin said, but rather on what she didn't: Her failure to offer a detailed defense of McCain's plan to finance a $5,000 healthcare tax credit by treating employers' healthcare payments as taxable - something Democrats relish hitting both as a "radical" healthcare scheme and a tax hike.
The campaign had already decided to attack McCain's healthcare plan, and the debate exchange will help drive that focus, they said.
"We're on a big offensive on John McCain's healthcare plan," said Obama campaign manager David Plouffe. "I think Sen. Biden did a terrific job today of describing why middle class families should fear John McCain's health care plan. She didn't answer the attack."
Palin's silence - she attacked Obama's plan as "government run," but didn't return to McCain's - was "a huge missed opportunity," Plouffe said, "because I will assure you this: Every voter in every battleground state is going to know that John McCain is taxing healthcare for the very first time. Twenty-one million people lose their healthcare because small businesses will drop it."
Read more about the new ad ">here.