While Mitt Romney
attacks President Obama on student debt despite his own poor record on the subject as governor of Massachusetts, Obama is running a positive ad on the same subject.
The ad, running in key swing states including Ohio, Florida, Nevada, Virginia and North Carolina, focuses on how, "with hard work and student aid, [Obama's] life was transformed," linking that to the importance of higher education for the American middle class more broadly and to Obama's record of having "doubled funding for college grants, capped federal student loan payments, passed the largest college tax credit ever." While Romney is attempting to attack Obama for tuition increases in the states, where the president has little control, then, Obama is showcasing the fact that he has a proven record of trying to help students and their families afford college. And by tying the importance of college aid to his own story, Obama's ad deftly makes the points that he has this concern in common with working families and that he is working to extend the same opportunities to the next generation that helped him get where he is today.
Bloomberg notes that the ad is customized to some of the states it's running in, with the Ohio version of the ad including a shot of Ohio State University and the Florida version including a shot of the University of Central Florida, to spark that extra bit of recognition in young voters and their parents.