From a reader:

The reason that Clinton was able to get traction from this argument against Bush, Sr. was because Clinton portrayed himself and was, at the time, a working man’s politician. Obama is not seen by the American people as a common-man. His foray to Europe, his hip celebrity friends, his worrying about the price of arugula have already created the conception of him as elitist. No matter how effective the ad would be for some other politician, I don’t believe it will be helpful to Obama.

Me: I agree with this. Plus, Clinton had enormous help from the media back then (whatever merit there was to the Clintons’ gripes about coverage, in 1992 they were pure media darlings). Don’t even get me started on the bogus Bush shocked at a supermarket scanner story.