Union Ad Urges Vets to Abandon McCain

Worried about the appeal John McCain has for military veterans among its members, the AFL-CIO is launching an advertising campaign criticizing the Republican's economic policies, the Chicago Tribune reports. The union will spend $53.4 million on the campaign, running mainly in places like Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Virginia— battleground states hit hard by the economic downturn.

"Every vet respects John McCain's war service. It's his record in the Senate that I have a problem with," one Navy veteran says in the ad. "He wants us to keep spending $10 billion a month in Iraq, just like Bush. That's money we could use to build schools and roads and create needed jobs here at home." (More John McCain stories.)