The Road Warrior

John Edwards was already on to the next thing. March 3, 2004, was a tough day for the rookie presidential candidate. He'd gone into the Super Tuesday primaries just a day earlier with momentum left over from a surprise second-place finish in Iowa and a victory in South Carolina, and hoped to win at least a few of the 10 states up for grabs that day. Instead, he'd failed to dominate any of them, not even Georgia. He was finished. He wasn't going to be president.

At least not yet. After withdrawing from the race, Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, chatted informally with staffers and campaign reporters at a farewell dinner at Sullivan's Steakhouse in Raleigh, N.C. The two were exhausted but relaxed, no longer feeling they had to watch their every word. Everyone was wondering if he would run again. Edwards, perhaps not wanting to appear impolitic, didn't touch the subject. But Elizabeth was in a more expansive mood, and spoke for her husband. At the hotel two nights before, they had stayed in room 2008. Surely, she said, that wasn't a coincidence. Standing beside her, Edwards unleashed his Tom Cruise smile, his deep-blue eyes twinkling.

Those who know Edwards never doubted he would be back this year, campaigning even harder than he did the last time. A relentless trial lawyer who got rich by outworking and outpreparing the competition, he spent the last three years applying those skills to plot his comeback. He was convinced that a retooled version of the rich-versus-poor "two Americas" theme he adopted in 2004 would find an even larger audience now.

Things haven't worked out quite the way he planned. He'd envisioned the campaign coming down to a two-person race between him and Hillary Clinton—a match-up he thought he could win by exploiting her divisiveness and high negatives. Barack Obama spoiled that by rivaling Edwards in charisma and optimism, siphoning away money and attention. And early missteps—the $400 haircut, the 25,000-square-foot mansion, the job at a hedge fund—raised questions about his authenticity and fed an impression among some voters that his common-man populism was more conceit than conviction. Now, with the Iowa caucuses just a few weeks away, he finds himself trying to talk his way up from third place.

At times, irritation shows through his usually sunny exterior. A powerful, engaging speaker before large crowds, he can become prickly and defensive in private when the conversation strays from his campaign themes. In an interview with NEWSWEEK, Edwards spoke with emotion about Elizabeth's ongoing battle with cancer (since recurring in March, her condition has stabilized) and about his father, who struggled to get ahead, "working really hard and not being able to get to the place that he deserved." Yet asked what lessons he had learned as a candidate in 2004 and what he is doing differently this time, Edwards turned cold. "I'm not in the business of going back and analyzing the '04 campaign," he said, "so I just don't."

On the stump, Edwards campaigns with the urgency of a man who is running out of time. He might be. A third-place showing in Iowa would likely spell the end of his campaign, and his presidential ambitions, for good. Yet Edwards believes he can still come from behind for an upset win. Political reporters may like the story line (and simplicity) of depicting Iowa as a Clinton-Obama smackdown, but Edwards's strategists say that the media and pollsters are overlooking a more important, if less glamorous, story.

For months, Edwards has been rounding up support in the state's rural precincts where the front runners have paid less attention. While Obama and Clinton have drawn crowds in the thousands in places like Des Moines and Ames, Edwards has been winning over people in tiny towns like Sac City (population: 2,189). Even if he loses to Obama and Clinton in the state's bigger cities, he hopes he can still win by wrapping up smaller, far-flung precincts that other candidates have ignored. "The bulk of our support is in small and medium counties," says Jennifer O'Malley, Edwards's Iowa state director. O'Malley says Edwards has visited all 99 counties in the state; the campaign has so far trained captains covering 90 percent of all 1,781 precincts. Rural voters are sometimes reluctant to caucus, so the campaign has been enlisting respected community leaders to encourage first-timers to get past their apathy or fear.