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It's the economy ...

That's what unions are trying to hammer home as they work to reel in votes from working-class voters for Sen. Barack Obama, who polls better on economic issues than Sen. John McCain.

On Sunday, the Service Employees International Union unveiled an ad featuring a white, working-class family struggling to get by after the husband named Henry lost his job eight months ago. The 30-second ad, which cost $2.1 million, will air in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Mexico, Wisconsin and Iowa.

"We have three kids, I like to send them to school looking nice, you know," says an unnamed woman in the ad. "I work two shifts usually, and we're still behind."

The ad attacks Sen. McCain, quoting him as having said that he still needs "to be educated" about economics and that he said the country is better off today than it was eight years ago. And it rolls a clip of Sen. Obama saying that his proposed tax cut would benefit the middle class three times more than Sen. McCain's plan.

In announcing the ad, Anna Burger, secretary-treasurer of SEIU, said she thought the McCain campaign has tried to distract voters from substantive issues lately and that the ad was an attempt to redirect voters' attention.

The campaign ad is SEIU's second major one this year, following a $1.5 million ad buy in April in Ohio.

The ad's melancholy tone harks back to the famous Harry and Louise ad of 1993, in which a husband and wife worry over government health-care proposals, and which is credited with helping to sink Bill Clinton's health-care plan.