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A campaign button on display in Iowa. |
Campaign Notebook
WASHINGTON, Iowa - As John Edwards and Barack Obama tangle over who would be more successful in ridding the capital of lobbyist influence, Edwards yesterday made a new promise about how he would govern - and challenged his rivals to do the same.
"No corporate lobbyist or anyone who has lobbied for a foreign government will work in my White House," Edwards pledged.
Yet the standard would be a looser one than Edwards currently applies to his campaign donors and fund-raisers. The former North Carolina senator proudly announces at the outset of his speeches that he has never taken money from lobbyists or political action committees.
Edwards told reporters that the rule on White House employment would apply only to those who had been federal lobbyists for corporate interests. When pressed to say how he would separate corporate interests from other causes that retain lobbyists - including the labor unions he often champions - Edwards said, "This will be a judgment I make."
Edwards also insisted yesterday that he has not taken any money from special interests as Obama's campaign complained about big spending by outside groups friendly to Edwards.
David Plouffe, Obama campaign manager, complained about a $495,000 donation from philanthropist Rachel Mellon to a 527 group called Alliance for a New America that is running ads in support of Edwards. Headed by former Edwards adviser Nick Baldick, the alliance has received most of its support from labor groups and is spending about $600,000 on radio ads and about $750,000 on TV ads in Iowa.
GLOBE STAFF AND ASSOCIATED PRESS
Romney camp disavows bogus holiday cards
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Many South Carolina Republicans got a bogus holiday greeting card this week, purporting to be from White House hopeful Mitt Romney, that cites some controversial passages of the Book of Mormon.
The card has a picture of a Mormon temple and says it was ‘‘paid for by the Boston, Massachusetts temple.’’ The text underscores differences between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and denominations prevalent in South Carolina.
Romney’s campaign said it had nothing to do with the cards, postmarked Thursday from Columbia, and Ken Hutchins, Boston temple president, said the church did not send them. ‘‘It is sad and unfortunate that this kind of deception and trickery has been employed,’’ said Will Holley, Romney’s South Carolina spokesman.
‘‘There is absolutely no place for it in American politics.’’ Katon Dawson, South Carolina GOP chairman, said he intends to ask the FBI and other authorities to investigate.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Leader of N.H. group ousted from Giuliani's campaign
Rudy Giuliani's campaign said yesterday that it asked for - and received - the resignation of a leader of its New Hampshire Veterans for Rudy group over his remarks about Muslims.
Praising Giuliani in an interview published Thursday in the British newspaper The Guardian, John Deady said the Republican presidential candidate has "the knowledge and the judgment to attack one of the most difficult problems in current history and that is the rise of the Muslims."
Deady also said the United States should "keep pressing these people until we defeat or chase them back to their caves or in other words get rid of them."
Giuliani has made fighting Islamic militants a cornerstone of his campaign.
GLOBE STAFF
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