TITLE: “100″

LENGTH: 30 seconds.

AIRING: nationally on cable television.

SCRIPT: Questioner: “President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years ”

McCain: “Maybe 100. That would be fine with me.”

Announcer: “If all he offers is more of the same is John McCain the right choice for America’s future? The Democratic National Committee is responsible for the content of this advertising.”

KEY IMAGES: The ad shows a split screen, the left half with the text of the questioner’s comments, the right with a fuzzy image of McCain listening. After McCain responds, “Maybe 100,” the McCain image freezes and the words “100 years in Iraq” appear across from him. After he says, “That would be fine with me,” the full screen cuts to images of U.S. troops under fire in Iraq and violence on its streets. The words “5 years,” “$500 billion” and “Over 4,000 dead” appear over the images. Then McCain reappears on a split screen, this time facing images of violence, and the question and response are repeated. The ad concludes with a photo of Bush with his arm around McCain.

THE SPIN: The ad plays up a McCain comment about U.S. troops in Iraq, links McCain with Bush and suggests that McCain will continue the policies of the unpopular president. The spot is the second of two in a half-million-dollar, three-week campaign on national cable television aimed at a key argument against the expected GOP nominee.

ANALYSIS: In tone, the ad is much like the previous DNC spot on the struggling U.S. economy. It quoted McCain as saying “I think we are better off overall” than eight years ago. Using his own words against him is part of the overall DNC strategy to put McCain on the defensive while Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton continue to compete against each other for the Democratic nomination.

The “100″ years remark has dogged McCain since he spoke those words last January while campaigning in New Hampshire. McCain gave what seemed to be a flippant response to a question about how long the U.S. would remain in Iraq. A questioner in a town hall setting had challenged McCain about Bush’s view that troops could be in Iraq for 50 years.

“Maybe a hundred,” McCain said. “We’ve been in South Korea. We’ve been in Japan for 60 years. We’ve been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That’d be fine with me as long as Americans, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. Then it’s fine with me. I hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al-Qaida is training, recruiting and equipping and motivating people every single day.”

McCain’s opponents have suggested those remarks mean that he would continue to wage war in Iraq for a century. Not so, McCain says, though he offers no specifics for when U.S. troops would be brought home or when the violence might end. Instead of framing the comments in terms of warfare, McCain says the U.S. military would remain there much as it has in Germany, Japan and South Korea.

McCain opened himself up to the ad because of his imprecise remarks, which didn’t spell out what he meant.

Transcript via Star Tribune