New McCain Ad Features Endorsements From Democratic Leaders

I don't know if the above ad will be effective or not, but I just love the tweaking at the nose factor. This web only ad features praise from Democratic leaders such as John Kerry, Tom Daschle, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton among others. They describe the Senator experience and willing to work with both sides of the aisle. Of course the democratic folks are not amused:

Who's that Praising McCain? Bret Hovell Reports:

"I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience he will bring to the White House."

"I believe the right approach begins with the proposal put forward by…Senator McCain."

Do names of Republicans pop to mind?

Would you believe Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, respectively?

A new web-only ad from the McCain campaign compiles seven quotes from seven prominent Democrats, each one offering compliments for the presumptive Republican nominee.

You can watch the ad HERE

Of course the ad, "Praising McCain," doesn’t utilize any recent sounds from those democrats – except for the quote from Clinton, who spoke her praise as a condemnation of her then-rival for the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama. Dean’s quote is more than five years old, one from Tom Daschle, the former Senate Democratic leader, is more than eight years old.

The praise from the left has been fainter since McCain starting running for President.

But the ad is designed demonstrate one of the points McCain makes regularly on the stump – that he can work across the aisle with Democrats.

The campaign isn’t spending money on the ad, beyond having produced it. They’ve parked it on YouTube, and are hoping for the free media of cable coverage to propel the ad beyond the Internet.

2004 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., released a statement Thursday in response to McCain’s new ad, arguing McCain has changed.

"The McCain campaign is determined to give their Paris Hilton ad a run for its money in the desperation department, and they’ve succeeded only in shining a light on the fact that the John McCain of today is unrecognizable from the John McCain of just a couple years ago," Kerry wrote.

"The real question is what happened to the John McCain we used to know and why he changed overnight into a George Bush nominee with a Karl Rove campaign. The new John McCain supports the Bush tax giveaways for the wealthy he once denounced, opposes his own immigration bill, flip-flopped on torture, and runs negative ads after calling for an honorable campaign," Kerry's statement read.