PHOENIX — John McCain certainly won't let Barack Obama have his Democratic convention all to himself. If Obama has a story to tell voters over the next four days, McCain is already pitching a far less flattering version from afar.

In newly produced television ads and on the stump, McCain is casting Obama as untested, unprepared to lead the country and too aloof to connect with voters. If he has an audience in mind, it's likely to be working-class voters, disaffected Democrats and independent-minded white women.

McCain's weapons? Democrats themselves.

The McCain camp gleefully raked through the Democratic primary archives to find Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton archly questioning Obama's forthrightness. Clinton's comments ended up featured in a new ad produced by the McCain campaign.

On Saturday, swiftly pivoting off Obama's selection of Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate, McCain aides created an ad in which Biden questions Obama's readiness to become chief executive. The clip was from a Democratic primary debate when not many of the candidates had kind things to say about each other.

Still, whether as ads or elaborate news releases, the McCain videos are seeking to intrude on Obama's week.

"The power to this message is that you're using the Democrats' own words," said Republican strategist Scott Reed, who ran Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign and is close to the McCain camp. "The McCain guys have successfully used the rapid response to set the terms of the debate on the eve of the Democrats' convention."

But Reed says it's a message the McCain camp will ride to the November election.

In the newest ad, McCain uses clips from a February interview Clinton gave Politico.com and WJLA Channel 7 in Washington remarking that "you never hear specifics" from Obama on issues, that "we still don't have a lot of answers about Senator Obama" and his relationship with a now-convicted Chicago real estate developer, and that "Senator Obama's campaign has become increasingly negative."

The ad is also a bit of mischief aimed at Clinton supporters who still believe she should have been chosen as his running mate.

An announcer states: "She won millions of votes. But isn't on his ticket. Why? For speaking the truth."