Obama reintroduces himself in first general election TV ad

Senator John McCain of Arizona took part in a town hall meeting yesterday in St. Paul. The Republican candidate said if he becomes president, terrorist Osama bin Laden will be killed in combat or executed. (Jim Mone/Associated Press)

While there aren't too many Americans who don't know who he is by now, Barack Obama uses his first general election TV ad to reintroduce himself as the product of strong American family values who has a "deep and abiding faith in the country I love."

The 60-second spot, unveiled yesterday, shows him in an open-collared shirt and blazer, seated in a room with sunshine streaming through the doors as soft guitar music plays. It goes light on his biography as the son of a white mother from Kansas and black father from Kenya, and instead highlights his up-by-his-own-bootstraps story.

"America is a country of strong families and strong values. My life's been blessed by both," he says in the ad. "I was raised by a single mom and my grandparents. We didn't have much money, but they taught me values straight from the Kansas heartland where they grew up. Accountability and self-reliance. Love of country. Working hard without making excuses. Treating your neighbor as you'd like to be treated."

Those values, he continues, guided him as he took jobs and loans "to make it through college," and led him "to pass up Wall Street jobs and go to Chicago instead, helping neighborhoods devastated when steel plants closed."

"That's why I passed laws moving people from welfare to work, cut taxes for working families, and extended healthcare for wounded troops who'd been neglected," he continues as scenes from the campaign trail appear.

The ad is to air starting today in 18 states, including usual battlegrounds such as Florida, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and some traditionally Republican states where Obama hopes to make inroads, including Georgia, Montana, North Carolina, and Virginia.

FOON RHEE

Edwards, Nunn reported on running-mates list
WASHINGTON - Former vice presidential nominee John Edwards and Sam Nunn, former senator of Georgia, are on a list of potential running mates for Democrat Barack Obama, a congresswoman said yesterday, one day after she met with members of Obama's team reviewing possible candidates.

Representative Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick of Michigan, who leads the Congressional Black Caucus, said members of her caucus asked her to forward the names of Edwards and Nunn when she met Wednesday with Obama's vice presidential search team.

The review team, presidential daughter Caroline Kennedy and former deputy attorney general Eric Holder, indicated the two were on the list.

Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, was John F. Kerry's running mate four years ago, while Nunn's name has come up for several elections.

Kilpatrick said she made several suggestions, including former vice president Al Gore, Representative John Murtha of Pennsylvania, and Governor Ted Strickland of Ohio.

She declined to say which names were put forth by Kennedy and Holder during their meeting. When Kilpatrick said Gore was her personal choice, "they had a smile on their face."

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Bin Laden would die under McCain, Ariz. senator says
Republican John McCain vowed yesterday that if he becomes president, Osama bin Laden will be killed in combat or executed - a stern response to Barack Obama suggesting Wednesday that he would put the terrorist mastermind in the equivalent of the Nazi war crime trials after World War II to avoid making him a martyr.

The issue is the latest back-and-forth since last week's US Supreme Court decision that granted the terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay the habeas corpus right to challenge their detentions in civilian courts.

McCain said accused war criminals put on trial in Nuremberg did not have habeas corpus.

"Under my administration Osama bin Laden will either be killed on the battlefield or executed," he said in a statement.

"Senator Obama's failure to comprehend the implication of the Supreme Court decision he embraced and the historical precedent of Nuremberg raise serious questions about judgment and experience and whether Senator Obama is ready to assume the awesome responsibilities of commander in chief."

FOON RHEE

Obama promises economic growth from bottom up
WASHINGTON - Democrat Barack Obama told union leaders yesterday that if elected president, he will pursue economic policies that benefit workers, but he also will seek input from corporate leaders.

"The economy is not working the way it should be, and that's going to be the goal of an Obama presidency - to make sure we've got bottom-up economic growth instead of the kind of tired, worn-out, trickle-down ideologies we've been seeing for so many years," Obama said.

He has been working to unite the labor movement behind his candidacy in meetings during two days in Washington.

Yesterday, he won the endorsement of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, the largest union for workers in the public service sector with 1.4 million members nationwide that was a strong backer of his former Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

The AFL-CIO, which had several member unions that backed other candidates, announced after a private meeting Wednesday that it will endorse Obama within weeks once its international leadership has a chance for a formal vote.

ASSOCIATED PRESS