WP: From Behind, Edwards Runs At Full Speed In Iowa
Clinton's Shadow Hasn't Cooled the Man and His Fans
By Libby Copeland
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 27, 2007; Page C01
DES MOINES -- Concerning the 2008 election, a few technical points to keep in mind: Voters haven't actually voted yet, and Hillary Clinton hasn't actually won the Democratic nomination....
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During informal community meetings across southwestern Iowa in recent days, the jeans-clad former North Carolina senator says little about Obama but mentions Clinton several times by name. He criticizes her for taking money from lobbyists and for voting last month in favor of labeling the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, which he and other Democrats believe gives President Bush free rein to attack Iran. Mentioning a news report indicating that Clinton has shifted from primary mode to general election mode, Edwards pulls out one of his favorite new lines.
"Did I miss somethin'?" he teases his audience. "Did we already have the Iowa caucus and I wasn't there?"
Edwards is scheduled to visit his 99th of the 99 counties in Iowa today. In his visits across the state, many to small towns in rural areas, he emphasizes his ability to capture both Democratic and Republican votes. ("You're looking at the only candidate who's actually won in a red state," he tells one crowd, referring to his victory in North Carolina's 1998 Senate race.) He takes questions and in recent weeks has been concluding his visits with a plea for voters to evaluate every candidate's trustworthiness above all.
He fields the most questions about his plan for universal health care, which his supporters always point out he offered in detail months before Clinton rolled out hers. "We hear about Hillary's hangnail," says Michael Fox, a man in a group of about 75 in a Sidney church. "We don't hear about what John Edwards's position on health care is."
But Edwards's supporters talk with foreboding about the Hillary Clinton "machine," like it's some sort of gravitational force. They know their candidate needs to do well in Iowa, which he has visited doggedly since 2005, to catapult him through the other early states, particularly since he has opted to take public financing, putting him at a monetary disadvantage to Clinton and Obama. He and Obama are currently neck-and-neck in Iowa polls -- trailing Hillary, though not by much. But if Edwards feels any such foreboding, of course he doesn't say so. Instead, he says, voters are just beginning to pay attention....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/26/AR2007102602308_pf.html
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