Obama argues his case for a second term in a two-minute ad

Also speaking directly to the camera, the president attempted to be direct and persuasive. "Today I believe that as a nation we are moving forward again. We have much more to do, to get folks back to work and make the middle class secure again," Mr. Obama said.

"What's my plan?" the president asked before laying out four things he would do in a second term, including helping the manufacturing sector through tax breaks, increasing domestic energy production, bolstering education and job training and cutting the deficit by $4 trillion over ten years.

The president didn't talk only about his ideas, he drew a contrast with his Republican opponent who, in his ad Wednesday, said he cares about the poor and middle class. "Now, Governor Romney believes that with even bigger tax cuts for the wealthy and fewer regulations on Wall Street, all of us will prosper. In other words, he'd double down on the same trickle down policies that led to the crisis in the first place," the president said.

"Read my plan. Compare it to Governor Romney's and decide for yourself," the president concluded.

The president's ad will air in the battleground states of New Hampshire, Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Nevada, and Colorado.

Romney, meanwhile, released another new TV ad, called "Bankrupt," hitting two key issues that resonate with Rust Belt voters in Ohio and Pennsylvania: coal and China. (Watch in video below.)

"Obama wages war on coal while we lose jobs to China," the narrator says in the television advertisement.

Related: Has Obama declared a "war on coal?"

"Now, your job is danger," the narrator intones. "Mr. President, let us keep our jobs."

Although the Romney campaign did not release details of the ad buy, including where the ad will run, it comes as new polls, including one released Wednesday by Quinnipiac University/CBS News/NYTimes that shows the president widening his lead in Ohio and Pennsylvania.