CORALVILLE, Iowa — Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama on Friday launched a fresh assault against rival John Edwards over questions about campaign funding from corporate lobbyists, rolling out a new television advertisement on the issue.
 
“I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over,” Obama says in the television spot.

The message dovetails with the Obama campaign’s release of a letter from eight Iowans who said they supported John Edwards in the 2004 caucuses but are now supporting Obama because they’re unhappy with multi-million-dollar ads supporting Edwards funded by what they described as “Washington lobbyists”.  
 
Edwards has demanded one outside group tied to a former campaign manager, Alliance for a New America, not run $750,000 worth of ads supporting his presidential bid. But the Obama supporters argued that more than $2 million was being spent to help Edwards from outside groups.

But the Edwards campaign shot back with its own letter from three supporters who said they initially backed Obama but switched. “We were disappointed to learn that Senator Obama took $1.5 million from PACs and Washington lobbyists — and only stopped taking their money days before entering the presidential race,” they said.

Obama also leveled fresh criticism both at Pakistan’s leader Pervez Musharraf and the Bush administration in the aftermath of the assassination of that country’s former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, saying the United States had to reassess its policies toward Pakistan.
 
“We have poured billions of dollars in support to President Musharraf… and he has not focused on dealing with the terrorist threat that is growing. That is where Al Qaeda is now,” Obama told a crowd gathered in a school gymnasium in Willamsburg, Iowa. “I’ve insisted for many months that we should tell the government of Pakistan that No. 1 that they have to observe democratic practices. And No. 2 they have to get serious about going after Al Qaeda.” 

– Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young