Edwards straddles 'Two Americas'

Contradictions cloud his message

DAVENPORT, IOWA -- Wherever he campaigns these days, John Edwards illustrates his devotion to working-class values with two chapters of his life story: growing up in Southern mill towns and whipping corporate lawyers in North Carolina courtrooms.

"This battle against entrenched powerful interests, I've been fighting this battle my entire life," Edwards recently told 650 people in a school auditorium in this Mississippi River town.

Edwards' new campaign attire is blue jeans. The former North Carolina senator has tromped through cow manure and watched his campaign van nearly get stuck on muddy country roads, all the time working to demonstrate to Iowans that he understands them and their daily struggles.

But his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination has suffered from other forms of muck, stories about decisions that call into question whether he understands pickup-truck values. Summoning stylists for $400 haircuts. Building a $6 million estate outside Chapel Hill. Working for a Wall Street hedge fund -- and investing $16 million in it.

Those things might have little to do with being president, but they make for easily understood questions from opponents and voters: Is he really devoted to the issues of regular people? Is he still the millworker's son, or has he been captured by the fruits of his wealth?

"It eats at me a little bit, yes," said Gary Ficken, 46, a longtime Edwards supporter who attended a recent rally for another Democratic candidate, Barack Obama. "So far, I still think he's sincere. But I think this is the baggage he will have to overcome to win in this state."

Edwards was Sen. John Kerry's sunny vice presidential nominee three years ago, emerging from a primary campaign in which he refused to speak ill of his opponents. But as he again seeks the Democratic nomination for president, Edwards has adopted an angry, more populist tone, sounding like a candidate for the lower and middle classes. Since losing the 2004 election, he has founded a center for the study of poverty, visited poor areas in Africa and India and kicked off his presidential campaign last year in New Orleans' Ninth Ward, which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

Edwards and his campaign say there is no inconsistency. He says his devotion to lower- and middle-class people evolved from experiences, both as a child growing up around textile mills and as a lawyer suing doctors, hospitals and insurance companies.

"It's all about giving power to people who don't have it and to give them a real shot, give them a chance to do the kind of things I have been able to do," Edwards said in an interview.

Seizing the day

Before Edwards gives anyone power, he must get it. That quest begins and may well end with Iowa.

On Monday, Edwards will start a seven-day tour of the state as the Jan. 3 caucuses draw near.

Edwards badly needs to win in Iowa, partly because of the compression of the political calendar: Iowa caucuses on a Thursday night, and New Hampshire votes the following Tuesday. A poor showing in either state could be the end of his campaign.

Despite playing in the political big leagues, Edwards is relatively new to politics. Before he first ran for public office in 1998, he only occasionally voted, choosing instead to focus on his thriving law practice. But that first campaign sent him to the U.S. Senate and thrust him into a spotlight that encouraged him to take a shot at the nation's highest office.

Then, as now, Edwards emphasized his roots. Edwards says his Southern mill village background gives him a special understanding of the problems of working people and rural America, and the devastation of harmful trade policies and poverty.