Obama's new campaign slogan: An MSNBC ripoff?

President Obama tries to woo the youth vote during a visit to the University of Colorado, Boulder last week: The incumbent revealed a new campaign slogan Monday.

(Image credit: Tristan Spinski/Corbis Images/Corbis)

last updated 8 January 2015

The video: As the week began, President Obama released a seven-minute web video that brands his campaign with a new slogan: "Forward." (Watch the video below.) The motto is one of several that Team Obama has trotted out in recent months — remember "Winning the Future"? — but none have resonated as well as "Change," his memorable slogan from 2008. The latest watchword has also come under fire for being remarkably similar to "Lean Forward," the slogan used in a recent advertising blitz by the liberal-friendly cable network MSNBC.

The reaction: Obama's new slogan is "an early Christmas gift" to conservatives, who will have a field day mocking Obama and MSNBC at the same time, says Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice. The GOP is "already successfully leading a hijack" of the slogan, enumerating all the horrible things voters "can look forward to" under an Obama administration, says Brett LoGiurato at Business Insider. Actually, the slogan is part of a carefully crafted message portraying "Obama as the embodiment of progress while branding Mitt Romney and the rest of the Republican Party as regressive and out of touch," says Byron Tau at Politico. The slogan also underscores how, since taking office, Obama has propelled the country forward from a very "precarious state," says Michael A. Memoli at RedEye. At the very least, it's better than Vice President Biden's suggestion, says Dave Boyer at The Washington Times: "Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive." Judge for yourself: