OMAHA, Neb.—The unlikely symbol of John Edwards presidential campaign has become a retired Virginia coal miner who until recently couldn't speak.

In speeches and in TV ads, Edwards highlights the story of how James Lowe, who was born with a cleft palate, could not speak until he was aged 50, when some doctors volunteered to fix his ailment, Rob Christensen reports.

Edwards expresses anger that in America someone could live for a half century with a fixable problem because he had no health insurance.

Edwards met Lowe in Wise, Virginia, last summer at the end of a poverty tour.

Lowe will join Edwards on the campaign trail this afternoon in Iowa for three days of campaigning with Edwards starting in nearby Council Bluffs.

He will be joined on Friday by members of the family of Valerie Lakey, a Cary girl who was seriously injured in a swimming pool accident. Edwards won a famous $25 million settlement against the pool manufacturer for not providing proper pool drain covers.

Sandy and David Lakey will join their daughter Valerie on the campaign trail.

The presence of Lowe, Lakey and others is designed to show how Edwards would be a voice for those who now have no voice in Washington.

DES MOINES—James Lowe, a former coal miner from Wise County, Virginia, has long been a mainstay of Democratic candidate John Edwards' political stump speech.

Now Lowe's story is being featured in a new TV ad that is being aired in Iowa, where Edwards is locked in a close battle with Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Rob Christensen reports.

Edwards uses Lowe, who he met in July during an anti-poverty tour, to illustrate how the health care system is broken. Lowe had a cleft palate which prevented him from speaking for the first 50 years of his life. His gained his voice after medical professionals voluntarily performed an operation.

"Fifty years without voice—in America," Edwards says in the ad. "This is wrong. It is immoral. When are we going to stop letting drug companies, insurance companies and their lobbyists run this country? America belong to us. James Lowe finally got his voice, now it's time for yours."