President Barack Obama is launching his first television ad of his re-election campaign, defending his energy record and citing his work to toughen ethics rules.
The ad opens by citing "secretive billionaires attacking President Obama" and says that the president has added 2.7 million clean energy jobs while reducing the nation's dependence on foreign oil. It calls Obama's record on ethics "unprecedented."
An Obama campaign official says the campaign has bought advertising time in at least six states that will be critical to the president's re-election bid -- Michigan, Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Iowa and on national cable television. The official spoke on condition of anonymity and was not authorized to speak publicly about internal campaign strategy.
Obama's campaign is expected to launch the television advertising on Thursday.
The advertisements are scheduled to start airing Friday in eastern North Carolina and will air on multiple stations including WITN, WNCT, WCTI, WFXI/WYDO and WITN 7.2.
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