Parties vie to form image of McCain

LAS VEGAS — The race is on to define John McCain.

The likely Republican nominee launched his first television ad of the general election campaign Friday, casting himself as a ready-to-lead wartime president in advance of a biographical tour to pivotal places in his life. Son of a military man, midshipman, Navy pilot, Vietnam POW, member of Congress for nearly three decades — this is the resume of the 71-year-old McCain.

"In some ways, I'm well-known to the American people. In other ways, I'm not well-known," McCain told The Associated Press on Friday.

The Democratic Party — still lacking a nominee — and its supporters offer a starkly different portrait. In their view, McCain is a Washington insider, backer of an unpopular war in Iraq, hair-trigger quick on Iran and indifferent on the economic woes of average Americans. They cast McCain as four more years of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

"All he wants to do is continue on the George Bush failed policies of the past," says Democratic Sen. Barack Obama. His rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, talks about "a Bush/McCain Iraq policy" and argues that "we've had enough of a president who didn't know enough about economics."

Seven months before Election Day, the two parties are furiously trying to establish a lasting image of McCain for voters. Perceptions can take hold, whether it's the one the Bush campaign crafted in 2004 of a strong, steady leader or the one critics tagged to Democratic nominee John Kerry — flip-flopper.

Aside from what the Democratic Party does to challenge McCain, a loose coalition of liberal and labor organizations expects to spend about $150 million this fall to push its causes and help Democrats win the White House and strengthen their grip on Congress.

"You can't discount some of the effects" of these efforts, McCain said.

Recent polls indicate that while McCain would run a competitive race against either Obama or Clinton, the Republican has work to do to boost voters' positive impressions of him. Some surveys also indicate that his identity isn't universally tied to Bush among pivotal independents.

A Pew Research Center survey released Thursday found that 45 percent of people viewed McCain favorably, a smaller slice than Obama and Clinton. Still, just over half of independents says McCain would take the country in a different direction than Bush — important given that two-thirds of independents disapprove of the president's job performance.