McCain ad uses Biden to attack Obama on security

Sen. John McCain's campaign released an ominous ad Friday invoking Sen. Joe Biden, who said earlier this week that the world will soon test "Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy."

Sen. Barack Obama, in Indianapolis, Indiana, boards a plane Thursday to visit his ailing grandmother in Hawaii.

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The ad plays heavily edited clips of Biden's remarks over images of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as well as stock videos of tanks, terrorists and a crying child.

"Listen to Joe Biden, talking about what electing Barack Obama will mean," the ad begins before introducing Biden's words from Sunday: "Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama. ... The world is looking. ... We're going to have an international crisis ... to test the mettle of this guy. ... I guarantee you it's going to happen."

The ad concludes, "It doesn't have to happen. Vote McCain." Watch a report on the mud being slung »

The McCain campaign said it will be putting the ad on airwaves in 14 battleground states.

The ad comes a day after McCain spent the day addressing economic issues on the campaign trail in Florida and as Obama takes a campaigning hiatus to visit his ailing grandmother in Hawaii.

Obama, who leads McCain 51 percent to 42 percent, according to Thursday's CNN poll of polls, will be replaced by his wife, Michelle Obama. She will fill in for the Democratic presidential candidate in Columbus and Akron, two stops in the battleground state of Ohio.

McCain will visit Colorado, a state that President Bush won in 2000 and 2004. The most recent CNN poll of polls shows Obama leading McCain there 50 percent to 44 percent.

McCain has events scheduled in Denver, Colorado Springs and Durango. Durango is on the border with New Mexico, where Obama leads by 5 percentage points, according to the most recent Research & Polling Inc. survey conducted for the Albuquerque Journal.

Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate, have both made stops in Colorado this week, and Obama will campaign there Sunday.

Biden will make Friday stops in Charleston, West Virginia; Danville, Virginia; and Martinsville, Virginia. Martinsville is on the border with the battleground state of North Carolina. Watch what's next for the candidates »

Obama campaigned Thursday in Indiana. He then flew to Honolulu, Hawaii, to spend the day with his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, whose health is deteriorating after she suffered a broken hip. He traveled directly to her home after landing at the airport.

Obama said in an interview for Friday's "Good Morning America" that Dunham has been "inundated" with flowers and messages from strangers who read about her in Obama's 1995 book, "Dreams From My Father."

"Maybe she is getting a sense of long-deserved recognition toward the end of her life," he said.

Obama resumes campaigning Saturday with visits to three Western states. The campaign has not specified which states, but New Mexico is expected to be among them.

Palin also will have to take a break from campaigning Friday as she and her husband, Todd Palin, are scheduled to give depositions in St. Louis, Missouri, on the July firing of Walt Monegan as the Alaska public safety commissioner.

Alaska's Personnel Board is looking into whether Palin unfairly fired Monegan.

The Alaska governor is scheduled to deliver a speech Friday morning in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, before traveling to Missouri. She will hold a rally in Springfield before giving her deposition. Afterward, she is scheduled to drop the hockey puck at the St. Louis Blues game against the Los Angeles Kings.

On Thursday night, Palin continued her line of attack on Obama, criticizing his association with domestic-terrorist-turned-activist William Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the candidate's former minister.

"What did those characters see in Barack Obama? Why would they have wanted to be associated with him?" Palin asked during an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity in Beaver, Pennsylvania.

Also Thursday, Palin addressed the Republican National Committee's purchase of $150,000 in pricey clothing for her, telling the Chicago Tribune that most of the clothes are still in her campaign airplane.

The designer clothing she has worn, she said, will be returned, auctioned off or donated to charity.

"If people knew how Todd and I and our kids shop so frugally. My favorite shop is a consignment shop in Anchorage, Alaska, called Out of the Closet," she said. "It is not Fifth Avenue-type of shopping."

She further suggested that gender bias was driving the controversy.

"Hillary Clinton was held to a different standard in her primary race. Do you remember the conversations that took place about her, say superficial things that they don't talk about with men -- her wardrobe and her hairstyles, all of that?" she asked. "That's a bit of that double standard."