In Iowa Run-Up, Edwards Uses Fighting Words

Monday, December 31, 2007

INTO THE RING

In Iowa Run-Up, Edwards Uses Fighting Words

DES MOINES -- For the final days in the Iowa contest, John Edwards has shed his blue jeans and open-collar shirt and put on a suit and tie -- and a pair of brass knuckles.

Often the forgotten man in Iowa's three-way Democratic battle, Edwards is on the move. Independent analysts see his support firming up. Advisers to both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama believe he might win the caucuses on Thursday -- though their views should be discounted somewhat because both would rather see Edwards win if they don't.

Four years ago, Edwards closed out Iowa in a rush. Had the campaign lasted a few more days, he might have won, and his second-place finish was almost as surprising as John Kerry's victory.

Nobody in the race here understands the rhythms of campaigns better than Edwards, and nobody is more ruthlessly focused on closing the deal than the former senator. This time he's trying to make it all the way, knowing that he cannot afford to lose Thursday night.

But it is his message that is most remarkable. No thought here of finishing on a sunny and positive note, as he did four years ago. His "America Rising" theme is not a variation of "Morning in America."

It is a call to arms that is raw and angry, populist and pugnacious. It is a message that is as exhausting as it is confrontational. It is a message that makes Al Gore's "people versus the powerful" seem timid by comparison.

One Edwards supporter, departing after a big rally in Des Moines on Saturday night, said he hasn't heard a message as passionate or strong since Bobby Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign.

Nice clothes aside, Edwards has turned street fighter for the final stretch. His message can be boiled down to a single word -- "Fight!" -- which he repeats over and over and over and over again: "Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!"

Edwards has rolled out anecdotes he has never used to make it more personal. They conjure images that hardly square with his slight frame and good looks. He was, as he now explains, a brawler as a kid, taking on bullies the way he later took on corporations and insurance companies as a trial lawyer.

"Like many of you, I had to fight to survive," he told an audience of nearly 1,000 people on Saturday night. "I mean really. Literally."

He describes the Southern mill town where he grew up as a tough little place and tells the story of getting into a fight one day with an older boy. "Got my butt kicked," he said. When he got home, his father offered a stern lesson in life.

"I don't ever want to hear, son, about you starting a fight," he said his father told him. "But you listen to me and listen to me clearly. I don't want to ever hear that you walked away from one. Because if you're not willing to stand up for yourself and if you're not willing to fight, no one will stand up for you."

The enemy he sees is corporate America and corporate greed. His message seeks not to unite the country but to finish what he describes as "an epic struggle" against forces that are killing America -- destroying jobs, holding down wages, putting people out of work and denying them medical care.

"You need somebody in the arena who will never back down," he says.

He casts America's challenges in terms of morality and immorality. Speaking of tax policies that have encouraged companies to send jobs overseas, he says, "This is insanity -- I mean complete insanity."

The rich have an "iron-fisted grip" on democracy and won't let go through negotiations. "Anybody who suggests that we don't have an epic fight on our hands is living in Never-Never Land," he says.

He condemns wealthy corporate CEOs and "paid mercenaries" in Iraq with equal fervor: They are destroying the future of America.

"When will this stop?" he cried out at a rally in Knoxville, Iowa, on Saturday.

"With you!" a voice responded from the audience.

"With you and with me," he replied.

His rivals scoff at the angry populism coming from Edwards in these final days. They believe it is an invention, saying that what Edwards now talks about bears little resemblance to the record he compiled in the Senate.

It is hypocritical, they say, coming from someone who grew rich in courtrooms and who now lives in an enormous house in North Carolina. It is phony, they argue, to condemn big money and become the beneficiary of an independent expenditure campaign run by a former campaign manager.

None of this bothers Edwards. He knows what the critics say, but he couldn't care less, believing that the attacks haven't hurt him. He believes he is connecting with the anger and unrest that many Americans feel about the state of the country and especially the way Washington works. He promises not to fix the system but to blow it up.

That message is strong brew and not for everyone, but it has found a following. Edwards is counting on enough Iowans -- those in small towns and rural areas especially -- to buy into it to put him over the top on caucus night.

-- Dan Balz

CALLING IOWA

Pollsters, Campaigns Keep Phone Lines Busy

When Iowans return home Thursday evening after the caucuses, they'll be greeted by an uncommon quiet: No pollsters or campaigns will be calling.

Iowa has been at the front of the political debate for most of the year, and during that time, Iowans' phones have been ringing incessantly.

A spate of new polls pushes the total number of Iowa "likely voters" to have participated in surveys this year to nearly 80,000. As a ratio of voters polled to expected turnout, this must be something of a record -- in 2004 about 120,000 people participated in the Democratic caucuses, and in 2000 about 90,000 caucused in the GOP contest.

It's not just public pollsters calling. Campaigns have been known to set up a phone bank or two to gauge opinion, solicit support and cajole voters to actually show up and spend hours caucusing in the middle of winter.

A month and a half ago, eight in 10 likely Democratic caucusgoers and nearly six in 10 on the GOP side said they'd been called by at least one campaign.

A new Iowa poll for MSNBC-McClatchy, conducted by Mason-Dixon, came out Sunday and goes deeper than the headline-grabbing horse-race numbers, showing, for example, the strength of support each candidate carries into the final five days of campaigning.

On the GOP side, Mike Huckabee's supporters were the most likely to say they will "stick" with their choice, while Mitt Romney's favorability rating is higher than Huckabee's (58 to 47 percent), perhaps suggesting that he draws from a broader pool of voters in an election where the outcome may come down to a small number of votes.

One horse-race finding that jumps out is that support for Huckabee is at 23 percent, down nine percentage points from the same poll a month ago, while Romney is up seven points to 27 percent over the same period.

-- Jon Cohen