INDIANOLA, Iowa — Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards was hoping on Saturday to highlight his $25 billion plan to boost the U.S. economy and create more jobs, but instead he found himself having to disavow an independent group that was planning to run ads supporting his White House bid.
 
Rival Barack Obama criticized Edwards over a group called Alliance for a New America which planned to spend $750,000 on television advertisements after Christmas on the former North Carolina senator’s behalf which came to light a day after Edwards had criticized such organizations.
 
“You can’t say yesterday you don’t believe in them, and today you have three quarters of a million dollars being spent for you. You can’t just talk the talk. The easiest thing in the world is to talk about change during election time. Everybody talks about change during election time, you have to look at how they act when it’s not convenient, when it’s hard,” Obama said during a campaign stop in Oskaloosa, Iowa.
    
Edwards disavowed the group and demanded that they stop their efforts: “They are part of the law, but let me be clear: I am asking this group and others not to run the ads.”
    
And he also had a retort for Obama, accusing him of only refusing to take campaign contributions from lobbyists and political action committees once he began his presidential campaign.
    
“I’m proud of the fact that, unlike Sen. Obama, I have never taken any money from a Washington lobbyist or PAC. From my perspective that is not an academic or philosophical question,” Edwards said.

– additional reporting by Kay Henderson

– Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young