DES MOINES, Oct. 9 — In his latest swing through Iowa, John Edwards traveled hundreds of miles past pastures and cornfields to small towns, where he shook hands, smiled for photographs, signed posters and spoke on topics like Iraq and health insurance.
But at a forum at McKinstry Elementary School in Waterloo, a woman asked why he was not on television.
“Hillary and Obama have been having quite a lot of ads on TV,” the woman said, “but I don’t see a lot of ads for you. And I am just wondering are you just sort of coming in under the radar?”
The question highlighted Mr. Edwards’s challenges as he campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination. Although his competitors have spent millions of dollars on television advertising, Mr. Edwards has yet to start his own advertising blitz. Instead, at forums, fund-raisers and barbecues, he has courted caucus voters here, as he did on a four-day swing that ended on Monday.
“I think both of them have spent millions of dollars on television,” Mr. Edwards replied to the woman. “But if they don’t spend most of their time answering your questions, they are not ready to be president.”
Mr. Edwards’s grass-roots effort has been as much for effect as necessity. With $7 million raised in the third quarter, a third of the sum raised by Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, Mr. Edwards’s campaign is pacing itself.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/us/politics/10edwards.html?ref=politics
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