Subject: John Edwards Goes National From: MITCH FRANK/AIKEN, SOUTH CAROLINA [TIME reporter] Sent: Saturday, Jan. 31, 2004

The official muse of John Edwards’ campaign is John Mellencamp. Edwards used to enter all his events to the strains of “Small Town,” but ever since the Des Moines Register endorsed him with the headline “His time is now,” the campaign has been using “Your life is now,” another Mellencamp tune. But Wednesday morning, at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, a historic black college, Edwards stormed into a rally as the school’s brass band trumpeted Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love.” And the crowd was dancing. And as Edwards spoke, repeated “Amens” and “That’s right's" reverberated from the crowd. We’re not in Iowa or New Hampshire anymore.

Welcome to the national campaign. After his Orangeburg rally, Edwards boarded a plane and headed to Durant, Oklahoma. Next he landed in Tulsa, then Springfield, Missouri, before ending the day with a 10 pm rally at Blueberry Hill, a blues club in St. Louis. Just to guarantee he was exhausted during this trek, Edwards had arrived in Orangeburg from New Hampshire at 3 am the night before, gotten up at 5:30 and started a round of early morning radio interviews. You have to really want to be president to run for it.

Seven states will vote on February 3rd, which means the days of retail campaigning are over. The candidates each spent about two months worth of stumping in Iowa and New Hampshire. They’ve organized campaigns in South Carolina, Oklahoma, Arizona, Delaware, North Dakota, Missouri and New Mexico, but they only have a week to close the deal and win votes. That calls for a different strategy. Town halls and diner visits are out. Television, mailings and phone calls are the weapons of choice. Candidates fly into town, hold a rally that’s guaranteed to make the local news at 5, do some local media interviews, and get out of town. The schedule leaves them with no other choice. Unfortunately, while clips of their basic stump speech make it on TV, detailed analysis of their policy proposals usually doesn’t.

Edwards’ strategy for Feb. 3 is to win a few prizes and hope he and John Kerry are the only major candidates left standing. The Edwards campaign staff believes that their guy can beat the frontrunner in a one-on-one fight, but admit he will have a hard time getting attention if the field remains crowded. They’re encouraged by Howard Dean’s financial troubles this week. Having spent almost $40 million and reportedly having only $3 million left in the bank, the Dean campaign has frozen salaries and given up advertising in the Feb. 3 states. They’re holding their cash in reserve for Michigan and Washington state, which vote on Feb. 7, but if they don’t spend it now, they have little chance of winning any states on Tuesday. It’s a desperation strategy.

Edwards has ads up in South Carolina, Oklahoma, Missouri and New Mexico, and in Virginia and Tennessee, which vote on Feb. 10. He hopes to win the first two and place well in the others. He has to win some states to keep his fundraising robust and to stop John Kerry from being anointed the nominee. Kerry has gained such momentum from his twin wins in Iowa and New Hampshire that it’s getting harder to slow him down. He has the money and media attention to win Missouri, the 3rd’s biggest delegate prize. Much to Edwards’ chagrin, many of the pundits have been talking of him as a vice presidential choice for Kerry, supposedly to put a Southerner on the ticket (when was the last time anyone voted for president based on his running mate?). Still, time is running out for the other six. The national campaign moves quickly.

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