Edwards hoping to reap most from rural vote
Democrat's small-town roots, ideas draw crowds in Iowa
ROB CHRISTENSEN
McClatchy Newspapers
AP PhotoDemocratic presidential hopeful former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards speaks to local residents and students during a stop at Sibley-Ocheyedan High School, Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2007, in Sibley, Iowa.
HARLAN, Iowa --The air was often perfumed with cow manure. The crowd sat on bales of hay in a barn. The most popular bumper sticker was "Hogs for Edwards." And John Edwards was introduced at each stop last week by "Cooter" from the old "Dukes of Hazzard" TV show.
Edwards is courting the rural vote.
While all the Democratic candidates for president are paying more attention to the problems of rural America this year, none has wooed the countryside more avidly than Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina and 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee.
Last week Edwards donned jeans and a zip-up fleece and hit the back roads of Iowa to stump for his program for rural America, which includes a range of proposals from increased Internet access to tougher antitrust regulation of big corporate farming operations.
But Edwards is pushing more than his policy agenda. He's also selling his life story -- the product of the small mill towns in the South, which he said allows him to connect with the problems of closed plants, struggling farms and towns left behind by the new economy.
"We need a president who actually cares about what happens in small
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