Edwards Campaign Runs Ad In The Des Moines Register, Will Begin Airing New TV Spot Featuring Edwards' Supporter Doug Bishop

Today, the John Edwards for President campaign is running a full-page ad in The Des Moines Register featuring a letter from Edwards’ supporter and former Maytag employee Doug Bishop. The campaign will also begin airing a 60-second television spot in Iowa featuring Mr. Bishop tomorrow.

In September 2004, Mr. Bishop was among the first wave of employees laid off at the Maytag plant in Newton, Iowa. In the television spot, Mr. Bishop tells the story of how shortly after he lost his job, he and his family met Edwards as Edwards was campaigning for the vice presidency on the Democratic ticket.

“This is something I’ll never forget,” Mr. Bishop says in the ad. “[John Edwards] grabbed my seven-year-old son by the hand, he dropped to one knee, and he looked him straight in the eye and he said ‘I’m going to keep fighting for your daddy’s job, I promise you that.’ You know, that stuff sticks with you. That’s the kind of things we need in a leader in this country…I want a guy that’s going to sit down and look a seven year-old kid in the eye and tell him ‘I’m going to fight for your dad’s job.’ That’s what I want.”

“I know first hand that if we stay silent, or just go along, or choose more of the same it will be too late,” Mr. Bishop writes to Iowa caucus goers in the letter printed in The Des Moines Register ad. “It is already too late for far too many families who have lost their jobs throughout our state. John Edwards knows what we know – that saving the middle class and American jobs in the face of corporate greed is going to be a fight. I hope you will join our cause of saving the middle class and passing a better life onto our children because that is what is on the line in this election.