New Mexicans are the first to see new McCain TV ad

Posted 3/28/2008 11:40:00 AM

John McCain began running today what his campaign is calling the first television ad of the general-election season, and he picked New Mexicans to be the first voters to see it.

The decision to air the ad first in New Mexico further highlights the importance of the swing-state to the 2008 election and indicates that New Mexico is set to gain a lot more national attention in the coming months.

The ad is coinciding with the GOP presidential nominee’s “Service to America” tour, in which he will travel the nation next week to give a series of speeches that are designed to help the American public get to know him. McCain’s schedule includes stops in Mississippi, Virginia, Maryland, Florida and Arizona.

Though McCain isn’t scheduled to visit New Mexico next week, as I reported on Thursday, his campaign manager, Rick Davis, will speak a week from today at the Republican National Committee’s 2008 state chairmen’s meeting at the Santa Ana Pueblo near Bernalillo. One of McCain’s top financial advisers, Carly Fiorina, will also speak at the meeting on Thursday.

The 60-second ad is airing statewide beginning today, according to a news release from the McCain campaign. The campaign chose to start the ad in New Mexico, according to the news release, because it is “an important battleground state.” It will air in other states in the coming weeks.

The ad begins with McCain speaking to an enthusiastic crowd.

“Keep that faith. Keep your courage. Stick together. Stay strong. Do not yield. Stand up. We’re Americans, and we’ll never surrender,” McCain says.

The ad, which is designed to introduce McCain as a war hero and tough would-be commander-in-chief, then goes to a narrator who suggests that a president must believe America and liberty and worth protecting, that America’s people are honorable and that its future is prosperous.

The narrator also suggests that people must believe the president has “walked the walk.”

Then it goes to now widely-viewed video of McCain being interviewed as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. He gives his rank and service number.

The ad concludes with the narrator saying, “John McCain. The American president Americans have been waiting for.”

Here’s the full ad: