LENGTH: 30 seconds.
AIRING: Ohio, Pennsylvania.
SCRIPT: Announcer: As President, John McCain will take the best ideas from both parties to spur innovation, invest in people and create jobs.
Taxes — simpler, fairer. Energy — cleaner, cheaper. Health care — portable and affordable. Workers retrained, mortgage debt restructured, education transformed. Initiatives that will unite us and ignite our economy.
Big ideas for serious problems. John McCain.
McCain: I'm John McCain and I approve this message.
KEY IMAGES: McCain's ad opens with the word "president" in bold letters on the screen before shifting to images of the Republican senator meeting with voters in town halls and factories. Quick images of tax forms, wind turbines, medical professionals and office workers all flash to illustrate the script. Video of homes and children also quickly roll across the screen to make McCain's point.
ANALYSIS: McCain, who has said economics is not his strong suit, is coupling the release of this ad with a speech in Pittsburgh in which he focuses on the gas tax, Medicare premiums and the tax deduction for dependent children. His first ad in perennial battleground states Ohio and Pennsylvania is an appeal to swing voters who will be key if he wants to win November's head-to-head contest with the Democratic nominee. The ad is scant on details but appeals to Republicans with talk of taxes and to independents with his pledge to make health care cheaper and home mortgages less problematic.
As Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton continue to chase their party's nomination, McCain is laying the groundwork in states that will be key in November. He runs about even with both Democrats in hypothetical polling matchups months before November.
McCain's fast-moving ad shows a vigorous campaigner and tries to quiet concerns that, at 71, he is too old for the White House.
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Analysis by Associated Press writer Philip Elliott.