MoveOn.org criticizes John McCain in its latest ad, shown here, for opposing a troop withdrawal timetable in Iraq. (YouTube/MoveOn.org)

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Independent groups are unleashing a barrage of new ads as the presidential campaign enters the summer season after a period of relative silence in the general election.

The latest round of ads takes the candidates to task for their positions on issues ranging from the Iraq war to birth control.

The organizations’ representatives say they are still in the early stages of testing the impact of the ad buys — but they are prepared to spend millions and are carefully targeting battleground states, hoping to make a dent in public opinion that lasts through Election Day.

Planned Parenthood, which has endorsed Barack Obama, launched its first TV ad of the general election Wednesday in six potential swing states.

The ad mocked John McCain for the trouble he had last week answering a question about whether he thinks it’s unfair that health insurance companies cover Viagra but not birth control.

The ad shows McCain saying, after a long pause, that he doesn’t know enough to give an “informed” response.

“Ever use birth control? Then you’ll want to hear this,” the narrator in the ad says.

Tait Sye, spokesman for Planned Parenthood, said the ad is targeting women as part of the group’s $10 million effort to bring 100 million women to the polls in November — for a pro-choice candidate, Obama.

The ad falls under the Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s “kNOw McCain” campaign, which according to the group is intended to educate voters about McCain’s “anti-choice and anti-women’s health care record.”

It is airing on Bravo’s “Project Runway” and Lifetime’s “Army Wives” in Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, Wisconsin and Washington, D.C., as well as on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in select markets.

Sye would not release the price tag, calling it “cost effective” — but said based on the response the group will determine whether to boost the ad effort.

MoveOn.org, which just launched a new ad blasting McCain for opposing a troop withdrawal timetable in Iraq, has already started to gauge the impact its ads are having.

A spokesman for the anti-war group said it did market testing for an ad that aired last month also criticizing McCain for his war stance. It featured an actress who, holding an infant named Alex, addressed McCain and said, “when you say you would stay in Iraq for 100 years, were you counting on Alex? Because if you were, you can’t have him.”

The ad aired nationally on select cable networks and locally in Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, at a cost of $500,000.

“What (our polling firm) saw is that the ad was extremely effective in consolidating women voters against McCain and for Obama,” the spokesman said.

MoveOn.org is preparing to spend up to $40 million in the general election, most of which would be spent on ads.

The latest ad, which the group calls a “rapid response” piece,” is just airing for a few days at a cost of about $100,000, on national cable.

The AFL-CIO also launched an ad last week that features a Vietnam veteran criticizing McCain’s stance on the war in Iraq and veterans issues. The ad was set to air for three weeks in Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. Union officials did not disclose the amount spent, but said it was a “significant targeted buy.”

On the other side, groups are beginning to shell out millions to criticize Obama.

Vets for Freedom, a 25,000-member group of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, released its second TV ad in what is expected to be a four-month campaign to rally support for the current strategy in Iraq.

The group has not endorsed either presidential candidate, but considers McCain an ally and criticizes Obama directly in its latest ad. The ad targets Obama, Sen. Chuck Hagel and Sen. Harry Reid for speaking out against the troop surge.

“While they argued, we continued to fight … the surge worked,” veterans say in the ad.

“The intent of all of these ads is to … sway the American people about the success of the war,” Chairman Pete Hegseth told FOXNews.com, adding that he also wants to sway lawmakers. “We can either stand by and allow MoveOn and other groups to say the war’s been a failure” or respond.

Though the group claims it is not trying to influence the presidential election, the ad buy targets key battlegrounds: Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Virginia.

The latest round is part of a $1.5 million ad buy. The first ad was released last week — both ads are running for about a week each.

Hegseth said the group is currently doing internal polling to test the impact of the ads, and that Vets for Freedom is prepared to spend “exponentially more” in the coming months.

The group is moving beyond the use of Web ads, but Hegseth said members were very pleased with the response to a pair of Web videos the group released in May prodding Obama for not having visited Iraq since January 2006.

Obama has since planned a trip to Iraq and Afghanistan, and Hegseth said his group can claim partial responsibility for that.

“We were very pleased that we were able to drive the presidential debate for a week in May based on two ads that were produced for $8,000,” Hegseth said.

Meanwhile, the first TV ad from an independent arm of the Republican National Committee just finished its run Tuesday after two weeks on the air.

The $3 million buy went up in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and accused Obama of following Democrats in refusing to allow more gas production at home.

McCain is “pushing his own party to face climate change,” says the announcer. “Barack Obama: Just the party line.”

The group is allowed to spend limitless funds during the campaign season, so long as the ads are not made in conjunction with the McCain campaign.

Brad Todd, a partner with On Message Inc., which is taking care of advertising for the independent arm of the RNC, would not disclose the budget for future buys.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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A Florida man has stirred up controversy in the Orlando area by buying ad space on billboards that show an image of the falling World Trade Center’s Twin Towers alongside the words, “Please don’t vote for a Democrat.”

The ad also points readers to a Web site, www.TheRepublicanSong.com, which posts a country-rock music video written and performed by billboard creator and businessman Mike Meehan.

Critics say the billboard ads should come down, but Meehan says he believes those who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks are being lost in the shuffle of the presidential campaign.

“I’m just basically exercising my freedom of speech, the First Amendment. And though some people find this offensive … I find it very offensive that we have not remembered these people that have died in this tragedy,” Meehan told FOX News. “We’re not reminded of the terrorism that caused all this.”

Democrats call the billboards an insult to the memories of those who died in the terror attacks.

“It’s an affront to the people who perished on September 11th,” said Bill Robinson, chairman of the Orange County Democrats, according to MyFoxOrlando.com. “It’s offensive. It’s using the tragedy for political and personal gain.”

Meehan denied using the imagery for political gain, but said, “I figured it was the best way to get my point across.”

Meehan said the picture of the towers is a reminder that terrorism is broader than Iraq and Afghanistan. “I honestly think that the terrorists are actually in cahoots and involved also in the hijack — the high prices of the oil.”

Meehan, however, isn’t the only Obama opponent looking to billboards to make his views known. One billboard up in Mandville, La., reads: “A taxpayer voting for Barack Obama is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders.”

Click here to read the full story on MyFoxOrlando.com.

Click here to see an interview with Meehan on FOX News.

Barack Obama talks about national security threats at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., Wednesday. (AP Photo)

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Barack Obama pledged Wednesday to place new emphasis on ridding the world of nuclear weapons if he is elected president, warning that nuclear terrorism is the “gravest danger” facing the country.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee was picking up where he left off during a foreign policy address of a day earlier, when he stressed the need to end the war in Iraq so that the country can devote its resources to fighting terrorism in Afghanistan and preventing nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of rogue regimes.

At a national security summit in West Lafayette, Ind., Wednesday, Obama said the United States is always responding to threats that have already come to fruition, in effect, “constantly fighting the last war.”

Obama said the nation needs to take a more preventive role in addressing threats, and that two goals of his administration would be to secure all loose nuclear material during his first term, as well as rid the world of nuclear weapons.

The United States will “retain a strong deterrent” as long as nuclear weapons exist, he said, but “we will make the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons a central element in our nuclear policy.”

“It’s time to send a clear message to the world: America seeks a world with no nuclear weapons,” Obama said.

The Illinois senator said the U.S. would negotiate with Russia to achieve “deep reductions” in both countries’ arsenals and work to “reduce global stockpiles dramatically.”

He did not comment on the news that the U.S. was sending a top diplomat to Geneva to attend talks with Iran’s nuclear negotiator. However, he issued a statement saying he welcomed the news “that the Bush administration has shifted course and will send an envoy for direct talks … with the Iranians in Geneva this weekend.”

Foreign policy adviser Susan Rice also said on an earlier conference call Wednesday that the Geneva trip is a “positive step.”

The John McCain campaign issued a statement saying the trip represented a “much more realistic approach than engaging in the unilateral cowboy summitry advocated by Senator Obama.”

At the Indiana forum, Obama repeated that he supports direct diplomacy with Iran.

“By keeping our commitment under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, we’ll be in a better position to rally international support to bring pressure to bear on nations like North Korea and Iran that violate it.”

Among those joining Obama for the panel discussion were two potential running mates, Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga.

As the former governor of a Republican state, Bayh could help Obama. Nunn, a defense expert from the South, would burnish the ticket’s experience.

When asked if he were interested in the job or had provided material to vetters, Bayh repeatedly referred reporters to the Obama campaign. Nunn said he thought an Obama-Nunn ticket was unlikely.

“If anyone offered me any high office in U.S. government, I’d be greatly honored and I’d talk to him. Certainly I would talk to Sen. Obama if he wanted to talk about it, but I think the chance of an offer are pretty slim,” Nunn said.

In his remarks, Obama also paid tribute to Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., who has focused on nuclear non-proliferation issues for much of his career, working closely with Nunn.

Indiana is a Republican-leaning state but Obama hopes to put it in play in the general election, capitalizing in part on his neighbor status from Illinois.

The senator also called for investing in methods to prevent, detect and contain biological attacks. He highlighted a proposal to spend $5 billion over three years to develop an international intelligence and law enforcement infrastructure to stymie terrorist networks.

He also addressed cyber-threats, pledging to appoint a national cyber adviser who will coordinate government efforts and report directly to the president.

The event continued the buildup for Obama’s upcoming visit to Iraq and Afghanistan. He also plans to travel to Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and Britain during his overseas trip.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

John McCain speaks during a town hall meeting in Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday. (AP Photo)

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CINCINNATI — John McCain told the NAACP and some skeptical black voters Wednesday that he will expand education opportunities, partly through vouchers for low-income children to attend private school.

The likely Republican presidential nominee addressed the annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the nation’s oldest civil rights organization.

In greeting the group, McCain praised Democrat Barack Obama’s historic campaign, but said the Illinois senator is wrong to oppose school vouchers for students in failing public schools. It is time, McCain said, to use vouchers and other tools like merit pay for teachers to break from conventional thinking on educational policy.

Obama, he said, has dismissed support for private school vouchers for low-income Americans.

“All of that went over well with the teachers union, but where does it leave families and their children who are stuck in failing schools?” the Arizona senator asked. “No entrenched bureaucracy or union should deny parents that choice and children that opportunity.”

In fact, Obama has spoken in favor of performance-based merit pay for individual public school teachers, even telling the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers union, the idea should be considered in a speech last year.

McCain received mostly polite applause in a room with some empty seats, two days after Obama received a thunderous reception from a standing-room only audience hoping to see him become the first black president.

In his speech, McCain lauded Martin Luther King, Jr., as a leader who “loved and honored his country even when the feeling was unreturned, and counseled others to do the same.”

In praising King to the NAACP, McCain used similar language to his mea culpa in April on the 40th anniversary of the civil rights leader’s assassination, saying he had been wrong to vote against a federal holiday honoring King.

The NAACP gathering heard on Monday from Obama, who said he would push the government to provide more education and economic assistance, but he also drew big cheers when he urged blacks to demand more of themselves.

“Whatever the outcome in November,” McCain told the crowd Wednesday, “Senator Obama has achieved a great thing, for himself and for his country, and I thank him for it. … Don’t tell him I said this, but he is an impressive fellow in many ways.”

During a question-and-answer session, McCain also sought to assuage a frustrated Head Start teacher who complained that her salary from the federal program simply isn’t enough.

The woman, wearing a union T-shirt, said she was making $17,000 a year and cannot afford housing, gas, food, or health care for her children. “We cannot continue this way,” she said.

McCain said the point of his education platform was to boost pay for “a great and outstanding teacher like you” and other educators who are passionate about their work.

“I want to reward good teachers,” said McCain.

Members of the audience said afterward they were glad to have heard from McCain, even if it didn’t change their minds.

“Winning votes, I’m not so sure, but friends, yes,” the Rev. Ronald Terry, pastor of New Friendship Baptist Church in Macon, Ga., said of McCain’s appearance.

Marjory Shields, a Penn State extension nutritionist from Croydon, Pa., said McCain said nothing to make her waver from her support of Obama.

“I gave him the courtesy of listening to his platform. I thought that in order for me to make an informed vote this November I really need to hear what all the candidates have to say,” Shields said.

“As far as my opinion on his speech, I feel he did not address certain key issues I wish he would have elaborated on,” such as more specifics on education funding, she said.

McCain said vouchers and merit pay for teachers whose students perform well are two important ways to help kids in failing schools.

“After decades of hearing the same big promises from the public education establishment, and seeing the same poor results, it is surely time to shake off old ways and to demand new reforms,” he said. “That isn’t just my opinion. It is the conviction of parents in poor neighborhoods across this nation who want better lives for their children.”

Both the merit pay and voucher proposals have met stiff opposition from teachers unions. Obama has indicated he would support some kind of merit pay system for teachers, if teachers help craft it.

John McCain speaks at a town hall meeting in Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday. (AP Photo)

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John McCain and Barack Obama are turning their foreign policy focus toward the war in Afghanistan, as new poll results show Americans consider that battleground more critical to the overall war on terror than Iraq.

The presidential contenders gave back-to-back addresses Tuesday on national security and foreign policy. Obama restated his pledge to end the Iraq war by the summer of 2010, while McCain and his surrogates accused Obama of wanting to concede defeat.

But both candidates devoted much of their speeches to staking out their strategies for Afghanistan, where violence is on the rise.

Nine U.S. soldiers were killed and 14 injured in a militant attack Sunday — the deadliest attack on the U.S. military there in three years.

Obama and McCain both said they would send more brigades to Afghanistan as troops are removed from Iraq — but they differed over the details and over how they would pursue terrorists operating next door in Pakistan.

Offering fresh criticism of Afghanistan, McCain told reporters Tuesday that there is serious corruption in the Afghanistan government and that President Hamid Karzai has not been the leader he would have hoped.

“(Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al) Maliki has proved to be a more effective leader. … Karzai has not been effective. Karazi has not been the strong leader that we had hoped that he would be. He is a very fine man. He just not has had as strong leadership that we had hoped,” McCain said.

During his address, McCain said the strategy of increasing troop levels in Iraq should be applied to Afghanistan.

He said three more brigades should be sent to the country. And he said the Afghan army should be doubled to about 160,000 troops, calling on foreign countries to help pay for the cost of the increase. Speaking later to reporters, McCain hedged on whether the additional troops could come from NATO instead of the United States.

“The status quo is not acceptable. Security in Afghanistan has deteriorated, and our enemies are on the offensive,” he said.

McCain also proposed appointing a White House czar on the Afghanistan war.

Obama said he, too, would send at least two more brigades to Afghanistan, but said the Iraq war, which he called a distraction, has prevented the United States from making progress in the region.

“If another attack on our homeland comes, it will likely come from the same region where 9/11 was planned. And yet today, we have five times more troops in Iraq than Afghanistan,” he said.

He said in the 18 months since the troop surge in Iraq began, “the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated — June was our highest casualty month of the war.”

Obama is preparing to take his first-ever trip to Afghanistan and his first trip to Iraq since becoming a presidential candidate.

In the run-up to his journey, McCain and Obama have clashed sharply over Obama’s stated plan to remove troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office. McCain also accuses Obama of waffling on that pledge when he said two weeks ago he’s willing to “refine” his policies.

But Afghanistan could emerge as the second front, not only in the war on terror but in the presidential debate on national security.

McCain said Tuesday there is a “vast difference” between Obama’s plan and his plan, which he said includes more specifics.

And the two candidates break over how to approach Pakistan.

Obama said the U.S. must apply new pressure on Pakistan to act on terrorist activity within its borders. He said that the U.S. must make clear that it is prepared to take out high-level terrorist targets in Pakistan if the Pakistani government does nothing.

McCain said that’s the wrong approach.

“In trying to sound tough, he has made it harder for the people whose support we most need to provide it. I won’t bluster and I won’t make idle threats. But understand this, when I am commander in chief, there will be nowhere the terrorists can run and nowhere they can hide,” McCain said.

McCain said, as president, he would track down Usama bin Laden and bring him to justice.

Both campaign dispatched surrogates to argue their positions on Afghanistan, as a new ABC-Washington Post poll shows a majority of Americans think Afghanistan is more important to the larger terror-fighting effort than the Iraq war is.

The poll found that 51 percent believe the United States must win in Afghanistan for the war on terror to be a success. Sixty percent responded that the war on terror could be a success without winning the war in Iraq.

According to the survey, 51 percent believe the war in Afghanistan is unsuccessful, up from 24 percent in 2002. Forty-four percent say U.S. efforts in Afghanistan are successful, down from 70 percent, the poll shows.

According to the poll, Americans were virtually split over whether a withdrawal timetable in Iraq is appropriate.

A new CBS News/New York Times poll showed Americans’ perception of Iraq improving a bit. According to a preview of the poll by CBS News, 45 percent say the Iraq war is going “somewhat” well, up 10 percentage points from last month.

But only 7 percent say the war is going very well, and 59 percent still think the U.S. should have stayed out of Iraq in the first place.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Barack Obama speaks about his Iraq war policy during an address in Washington, D.C., Tuesday. (AP Photo)

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Barack Obama restated his pledge to end the Iraq war by the summer of 2010, arguing that the U.S. must focus on defeating Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of Iran.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, in a speech delivered ahead of a trip to the Middle East, said Tuesday in Washington, D.C., that the United States is still at risk of a terrorist attack, but the Iraq war has become a burden on the country that only diminishes security.

“This war distracts us from every threat that we face and so many opportunities we could seize,” Obama said. “By any measure, our single-minded and open-ended focus on Iraq is not a sound strategy for keeping America safe.”

Obama stressed several opportunities he said were lost as a result of the war, and reiterated that he will give the military a new mission if he is elected president: “ending this war.”

John McCain, during a town hall meeting held just minutes after Obama delivered his address, said he knows “how to win wars” and that the strategy of increasing troop levels in Iraq should also be applied to Afghanistan.

“Senator Obama will tell you we can’t win in Afghanistan without losing in Iraq. In fact, he has it exactly backwards,” McCain said in Albuquerque, N.M. “It is precisely the success of the surge in Iraq that shows us the way to succeed in Afghanistan.”

McCain also criticized Obama for laying out an Iraq policy without having visited both Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Senator Obama is departing soon on a trip abroad that will include a fact-finding mission to Iraq and Afghanistan,” McCain said.

“He is speaking today about his plans for Iraq and Afghanistan before he’s even left, before he has talked to General Petraeus, before he has seen the progress in Iraq, and before he has set foot in Afghanistan for the first time. In my experience … fact-finding missions usually work best the other way around: First you assess the facts on the ground, then you present a new strategy.”

McCain said as president he would track down Usama bin Laden and bring him to justice.

Obama went after McCain Tuesday for using the success of the troop surge to argue that Obama should change his pledge to end the war.

“But this argument misconstrues what is necessary to succeed in Iraq, and stubbornly ignores the facts of the broader strategic picture that we face,” Obama said.

He said U.S. troops have “performed brilliantly” in lowering violence in Iraq, but that the surge brought other strains: on the military, on taxpayers and on security in Afghanistan.

Obama said he’d add at least two additional combat brigades in Afghanistan and exert pressure on Pakistan to step up the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

And he said he would couple aggressive and direct diplomacy with the threat of sanctions to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of the Iranian regime.

At the top of his address, Obama repeated his pledge to end the war within 16 months of taking office.

Reserving the right to make” tactical adjustments” as the strategy is implemented, Obama said, “We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months — that would be the summer of 2010.”

Obama was answering questions about his Iraq policy that arose after he said two weeks ago he may “refine” his strategy after visiting Iraq and Afghanistan. That was widely taken to mean he was considering adjusting his oft-stated plan to withdraw combat brigades within 16 months of taking office. Obama said at the time he was not talking about his withdrawal timetable.

Obama said Tuesday, though, he has been consistent in saying he would “consult with commanders on the ground and the Iraq government” in carrying out his strategy.

Obama said his five-point strategy also includes achieving energy security and “rebuilding our alliances.”

“George Bush and John McCain don’t have a strategy for success in Iraq — they have a strategy for staying in Iraq,” Obama said.

Meanwhile, the New York Daily News reported that the Obama campaign altered its Web site to remove a statement that Bush’s surge of troops in Iraq “is not working.” Over the weekend, the site was changed to describe an “improved security situation” at the cost of U.S. lives.

Campaign aide Wendy Morigi told the newspaper that Obama is “not softening his criticism of the surge. We regularly update the Web site to reflect changes in current events.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.