The Recovery Strategy

The way his senior adviser tells it, John Edwards intended to slip into third place in Iowa. According to Joe Trippi, the best way to leap to the top of the race is to slide back and then recover. The only problem is that Edwards is running out of time for the recovery.

Even the candidate seems to know it. "You've executed the first stage of the strategy very well," Edwards likes to tell Trippi. "When will you execute the second?"

Trippi's account of his running joke with the candidate might be the long-standing strategy of the Edwards campaign. Or it might be an explanation scripted after the slide had already begun. When asked where his boss stands in Iowa, Trippi blurts out, "Third place." But he also promises that, having just started to advertise in Iowa, the candidate will ultimately rise to the top. "It was a contest to see who could hold their breath the longest," says Trippi. "And we won."

There is a downside to holding your breath too long: the appearance of drowning. In five polls taken in Iowa this month, Hillary Clinton's lead ranges from two to six points. Edwards is either close to Barack Obama, tied for second, or lagging in third. He hasn't led an Iowa poll since August. These state soundings may be notoriously unreliable, but at his current levels Edwards is still more than 10 points behind where he ended up in Iowa in 2004. Clinton and Obama may have spent far more to secure their positions—a point the Edwards team is fond of making. But by taking federal matching funds, Edwards has a cap on how much late-stage cash he can spread around.

Edwards's strategy of a late surge may help explain why the Clinton campaign targeted its fire in Thursday night's debate at the former North Carolina senator. Of three instant rebuttals by the Clinton campaign in the first hour of the Las Vegas showdown, two were attacks on Edwards—the first on health care, the second on illegal immigration.

Indeed, the toughest Clinton line of the night was fired in Edwards's direction. "I don't mind taking hits on my record on issues, but when somebody starts throwing mud, at least we can hope that it's both accurate and not right out of the Republican playbook," she said. "You know, Senator Edwards raised health care again. When Senator Edwards ran in 2004, he wasn't for universal health care. I'm glad he is now."