WASHINGTON -- A political advocacy group consisting of backers of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign was to begin spending at least $700,000 Tuesday in an Indiana advertising blitz calling on Sen. Barack Obama to address the economic plight of Americans. The Indiana ad campaign would be the biggest single expenditure in a state for the mostly union financed group, called the American Leadership Project. The group spent more than $1 million running ads in Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania. "Indiana has been ground zero for economic anxiety since 2001," said Jason Kinney, an Indiana native and one of the organizers of the American Leadership Project. The ad quotes commentators who describe Obama's economic plan as deficient. The ad campaign could come at a crucial time for Clinton. The Democratic presidential race in Indiana is a dead heat, according to public opinion polls. Obama, the better-financed candidate, has been spending more than Clinton in the state. As of its last filing with the Federal Election Commission, the group had raised $1.5 million, almost all of it from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a union that has endorsed Clinton. The group is a so-called 527 organization, named after the section of the tax code that governs their activities. Such groups, unlike candidates and political action committees, can raise unlimited amounts of money from unions, individuals and corporations. But the law prohibits them from coordinating their work with political campaigns. They also are barred from explicitly advocating the election or defeat of a candidate. But they are permitted to support or oppose issues and the stands that candidates take on those issues. Before the Ohio and Texas primaries, the American Leadership Project ran an ad supporting Clinton's economic policies. The ad did not mention Obama, but alluded to him with an announcer saying: "If speeches could create jobs, we wouldn't be facing a recession." The ad campaign became more pointed in Pennsylvania, claiming Obama's health care plan would leave millions uninsured.
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