Nevada woman featured in Obama’s first official campaign video

By Karoun Demirjian

Monday, April 4, 2011 | 12:55 p.m.

Just in case it wasn’t very obvious, President Barack Obama is running for re-election. His new campaign video made it official.

Obama for America released its first official campaign video today, which seems geared toward inspiring the sort of grassroots activism that brought him to the White House back in 2008. It features five Obama supporters -- including one from Nevada.

“I’m kind of nervous about it,” Gladys from Nevada says during the opening sequence of the two-minute video. “It’s coming, here it is. 2012, the election.”

The video doesn’t actually feature the president at all. His face never appears -- and neither does his voice, even though Obama’s strongest suit has often been his ability to deliver a rousing and inspiring speech.

Instead, it relies on the words of the featured supporters -- from various parts of the country -- and seems more geared toward enlisting volunteers than delivering a campaign message.

“We’re not leaving it up to chance, we’re not leaving it up to the incumbent type of thing. It’s an election we have to win,” Gladys from Nevada says.

If there is a campaign message, it’s loose.

“As a community we all have the same concerns,” Gladys said. “We all want our kids to go to school and learn, we want them to graduate, we want jobs to be out there, we want people to have homes, we want people to have opportunity.”

“There are so many things that are still on the table that need to be addressed, and we want them to be addressed by President Obama,” she finishes.

Obama won Nevada by a healthy 12.5 percent margin in 2008, but it is still very much considered a swing state in 2012. While Democrats' ground organization in Nevada is strong, it may be difficult for Obama to post the same numbers.

Democrats generally are expected to do better in places where they can show that the Obama platform has brought jobs and economic prosperity to areas ravaged during the recession that began during the last presidential election season. Nevada remains worst in the nation when it comes to unemployment and foreclosure rates.