Hillary Clinton released a new ad on Friday in Iowa and New Hampshire; Barack Obama followed on Monday with a NH ad. Both feature the candidate speaking to adoring audiences. Taken together, they tell a lot about why each campaign sits where it does today.

Hillary's ad isn't going to win any poetry awards; the Bush economy has created a "trapdoor" for the middle class, she argues. But her ad is utilitarian and has the virtue of making a specific argument, aimed at a specific constituency:

In contrast, Barack Obama is up with a new New Hampshire ad, "America's Back:"

Admittedly, Obama is offering something more uplifting. But is there another candidate in either party who couldn't recite almost the same exact thought? (Yes, even Hillary could do it, despite the veiled reference to "reaching out to friend and foe" that all of three voters in the whole country will get.) That makes it the political equivalent of cotton candy - so vague as to be meaningless.

Obama's rhetoric is also leaden - ironically more than Hillary's. "Beacon of light" is, charitably, a cliche. (Trapdoor isn't a cliche - just a bad image.) The rest of his ad is as conceptual as hers is explicit. Again, Obama is telling the voters what he wants to do; he's not showing them. Someone may trudge through the snow for three miles on Election Day to vote to get health insurance or protection against losing a job. But no one is going to do it to fight "conventional thinking." In fact, the question isn't even whether America should be a beacon of light or against conventional thinking; it's how. That's where the differences lie that decide elections.

No doubt, Obama is preaching to the choir, as is Hillary. (And a nice looking choir they seem to be in both ads!) Unfortunately, his job now, given the polls, is to double the size of his choir.

It's not that he doesn't have specific things he could talk about. Historically Iowa voters have been very concerned about campaign corruption and each week brings a new story of questionable tactics in the Clinton campaign. Obama shouldn't go on the offensive but there are perfectly nice and civil ways to point out that "you can judge a future president by the way he or she chooses to run for president." That's a tack that might work better than this effort.

To read Steven Stark's complete "Presidential Tote Board" blog, go to www.thephoenix.com/toteboard/