Obama Ad: McCain's War Policy An Economic Disaster

The Obama campaign released a new attack ad on Wednesday that -- as the Senator has tried to do during the debate over the surge -- ties economic troubles at home to McCain's support of the Iraq war.

Titled "Book," the spot reads: "Economics by John McCain. Support George Bush 95 percent of the time. Keep spending $10 billion a month for the war in Iraq, while the Iraqis sell oil for record prices, giving Iraq a $79 billion oil surplus and hurting our economy."

The ad plays off of McCain's self-proclaimed weakness on economic matters and is the second harsh spot the Obama campaign has aired in as many weeks. The Iraq angle is a curious one. Rather than going back to the war authorization -- and, obviously, avoiding a debate on the surge -- Obama is homing in on the pocketbook pull of the war.

A spokesperson for the Obama writes that the spot will start airing on Thursday in Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin -- a significant buy.

UPDATE: The McCain campaign responds by attempting to tie Obama and Bush, though there seems to be a bit of friction to the idea that the Senator was "in lockstep" with Bush "nearly half the time."

"In the Senate, Barack Obama has voted in lockstep with President George W. Bush nearly half the time, including the Bush-Cheney Energy bill which gave close to 3 billion dollars in new giveaways to Big Oil - a terrible policy that John McCain opposed. The truth is Barack Obama's plan is a job killing machine that ignores the struggling economy and raises taxes on family savings, social security and small businesses," said Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for McCain.