By Mike Dorning
CORALVILLE, Iowa—Barack Obama began airing two new television ads in Iowa today that suggest his campaign has an eye warily fixed on the populist appeal of rival John Edwards.
Both commercials stress the us-against-them combat of “special interests” that has been a core theme of the Edwards campaign.
Edwards has been creeping upward in the polls slightly in recent days, with contest in Iowa a dead heat. And Obama’s advisers believe many undecided voters have in effect chosen not to support Clinton without making a firm decision on which candidate to back.
In one of the new ads, titled “Interest,”Obama laments that “While Iowans struggle with health costs, outside groups are spending millions to stop change, including false attacks on Barack Obama’s health plan” before going on to rebut the criticism.
One of the outside groups recently in the news is a “527” independent-expenditure group financed by labor unions supportive of Edwards.
In the other ad, titled “Listening,” Obama says he is “in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over.”
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He goes on to claim “I have done more than any other candidate in this race to take on lobbyists–and I have won.”