Click here to watch "Dignity."

As Barack Obama embarked on a week-long patriotism tour, aimed at fighting a sustained whisper campaign questioning his love of country, his campaign released its second TV ad of the general election Monday afternoon. "Dignity" (subscription) touches on many of the biographical details emphasized in his previous ad, "Country I Love" (subscription), but builds on the theme of the candidate's dedication to working-class Americans.

A narrator touts the Illinois senator's modest background and up-by-the-bootstraps story as black-and-white images of a young Obama flash on screen. "He worked his way through college and Harvard Law," then "turned down big money offers" to help workers and their families in "neighborhoods stung by job loss." The narrator then lays out a series of Obama's initiatives in the Illinois state Senate and Capitol Hill aimed at helping hardworking citizens: Obama "fought for workers’ rights," "passed a law to move people from welfare to work, slashed the rolls by 80 percent" and "passed tax cuts for workers, health care for kids."

As president, the narrator continues, Obama plans to punish companies that outsource jobs and reward those that create more jobs at home. Finally, showing video footage of the candidate touring a factory and joking around with a group of women in an industrial kitchen, the spot concludes: Obama will "never forget the dignity that comes from work."

The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder points out some of the linguistic tricks the spot uses to gloss over the more complicated facts behind Obama's record. For example, Obama was actually opposed to welfare reform in 1996. Meanwhile, the San Francisco Chronicle's Joe Garofoli scoffs, the ad is "part of Obama's Penance Tour of Working Class America" and the senator is "still paying political restitution" for his remarks about "bitter" working-class Americans "clinging" to guns and religion.

The spot is running in the same 18 states initially targeted by Obama's team and demonstrates that, even after a two-week-long economy tour, the Obama campaign still feels the need to court blue-collar voters, whom they fear may defect to John McCain in November.