John Edwards Bets the Farm

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At the end of a perfect summer day in Iowa, it is almost possible to believe that John Edwards' presidential campaign is right on track. At stop after stop on his mid-August bus tour, the pretty small-town squares fill with voters who say they feel a strong attachment to the former Senator from North Carolina. They relate to his rural Southern style. They agree with his argument that Washington insiders have twisted the system to rip off people like them. They don't care how much he pays for his haircuts. And they plan to caucus for him.

Edwards hopes these people will propel him to the 2008 Democratic nomination, despite national polls and fund-raising tallies that heavily favor Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The Democratic establishment has fallen into line behind Clinton; a great many people are inspired by Obama; the media are preoccupied with the competition between the two. But Edwards is busy casting his own spell in Iowa, where he came from nowhere to a second-place finish in 2004, before joining John Kerry's ticket as the vice-presidential candidate. He is betting that early success in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina can slingshot him into contention in the 20 or so states that vote on Feb. 5. But in recent weeks, as his campaign pulled staffers from Nevada and he stayed stuck in third place in New Hampshire, the first of those four states has become a must-win. "I'm not going to kid anybody," says Edwards strategist Joe Trippi, who ran Howard Dean's 2004 campaign. "Not winning Iowa would severely diminish our ability to whoosh out."

And so, as the Edwards caravan rolls into Ottumwa in the southeastern part of the state, the candidate and his wife Elizabeth conduct a master class in the art of emotional connection. More than 300 people have packed into a wood-paneled room inside UAW Local 74, a modest brick union hall around the corner from a vast John Deere plant. They cheer when Elizabeth Edwards cites a poll that puts her husband 8 points ahead of Hillary Clinton in Iowa, and they fall into a hush when Elizabeth talks about health care. "Ninety-five thousand women in this state are uninsured," she says, "and if you are uninsured, you are 30% to 50% more likely to die of breast cancer." Her words resonate with the knowledge that her breast cancer has spread incurably to her ribs and hip. She mentions her husband's health-care plan, which promises to cover every American at a cost to taxpayers of $90 billion to $120 billion a year, and says, "I want you to ask the other candidates, 'When your health-care plan passes, what is the number of uninsured?' That number needs to be zero." Then she hands the microphone to her husband.

Everything John Edwards says, does and wears, from the frayed cuffs of his faded jeans to the rolled-up sleeves of his basic blue shirt, tells these people he is one of them. He may be a millionaire trial lawyer, but he made his money by taking on corporations on behalf of regular folks, "and I beat 'em and I beat 'em and I beat 'em again." He and Elizabeth fall into a little routine onstage—she's the smart, gabby wife, he's the exasperated but loving husband—and when she interrupts him by mopping up some water that has spilled at his feet, he pretends to get mad. "Quit frettin' about it! Y'all stop messin' around and listen!" People laugh—husbands nudge their wives—and then they lean in and listen, because Edwards is bearing down now, telling them they need "real change in America, serious change" and they won't get it by replacing George W. Bush with just any Democrat. "We need to take the power out of the hands of these insiders that are rigging the system against you. And I'm telling you they are rigging it. You want to know why you don't have universal health care? Drug companies, insurance companies and their lobbyists in Washington, that's why. We will never change America until we have a President who's willing to stand up to those people and take 'em on!"

For 30 years, Democratic contenders have hugged the political center and avoided such talk because they believed that populism scares away middle-class voters. But Edwards thinks those rules are finally changing, that voters everywhere are ready for a sharp critique of what's gone wrong. And he has one advantage his opponents lack: a sweet-tea voice that makes his tough talk go down easy. He isn't ranting; he's twanging like a bluegrass banjo, rolling along in full control—outraged on behalf of people who have lost their jobs or pensions to corporate restructuring, people who watch their children go off to "this mess of a war in Iraq." And he's enthusiastic about all the things he'll do for these people as soon as he shuts down those rascally insiders: pass universal health care and middle-class tax relief, raise taxes on rich folks, end the war, stop global warming, rebuild labor unions, bail people out of foreclosure, and let's not forget highways and bridges and "college for everyone" and an antitrust investigation of Big Oil, and on and on.

Trippi likes to say Edwards is running a "transformational" campaign that calls on our better angels rather than a "transactional" campaign full of policies meant to buy votes from specific groups. But Edwards' sales pitch is full of transactions—a couple hundred billion dollars' worth of them, give or take—and the crowd in Ottumwa wants all of it. When he is finished, the people clap and whoo-hoo and head up to shake his hand and hug Elizabeth. A gray-haired woman in front of me, who wears a blouse covered with Harley-Davidson logos, is cheering as hard as anyone, so I tap her on the shoulder. When she turns, I can suddenly see the tears welling up in her eyes. I apologize for intruding and say, "He touched you, didn't he?"

She nods. "And she did too," she says. Her name is Donna Ward, and she works in a mousetrap factory. "I've made up my mind," she says. "He's my man. He knows exactly what we want." When I ask her what impressed her most, she can't point to anything in particular. She's quiet for a moment, then says, "It's more the whole feeling."