A few minutes before John Edwards delivered a forceful closing argument to the voters who will help determine the fate of his presidential ambitions, he called upon a gentleman seated near a window in the library in downtown Charles City.
“If the American people understood what’s going on all over, there would be a revolution tomorrow morning,” exclaimed the man, who said he was a retired eastern Iowa farmer.
“I’m with you, brother!” Mr. Edwards replied, nodding in affirmation.
Seldom do presidential hopefuls suggest the time for a revolution is dawning, but Mr. Edwards is exhibiting a fresh ferocity in his second run at the White House. With 59 days until Iowa opens the nominating contest, Mr. Edwards is intensifying his criticism of Democrats, Republicans and a government he calls corrupt.
The charm and optimism that characterized his campaign in 2004 are now fused with an urgent tone of anger and aggression as he seeks to present himself as a leading alternative to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. These days, he does not leave a room before telling his audience why he believes she should not — and cannot — be elected president.
“If she remains a candidate of the status quo and part of a broken system, I think it would be extremely difficult to win,” Mr. Edwards said in an interview.
To the great frustration of Mr. Edwards and his aides, the race for the Democratic presidential nomination is often portrayed as a two-person battle between Mrs. Clinton, of New York, and Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, relegating him to the bottom of the first tier.
But with Mrs. Clinton taking heavy fire from Democratic and Republican candidates alike, Mr. Edwards is trying to recast the race, brushing aside questions about his fund-raising (trailing Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama on that front, he is accepting public financing) and poll numbers (his early strength in Iowa has eroded as those two rivals have lavished time and money here) to assert that only he can assure a Democratic victory next November.
Answering questions aboard his campaign van as it rumbled through eastern Iowa on Sunday, Mr. Edwards also suggested that Mr. Obama lacked the fight needed to win the presidency and to change Washington, saying it was not enough to promise to be a unifier. “The notion that these entrenched interests are going to compromise away their powers is a fantasy,” Mr. Edwards said.
But to his audiences, whether here in Iowa or in other early-voting states like New Hampshire and South Carolina, Mr. Edwards seldom mentions Mr. Obama. As he has done in virtually all of the televised debates, Mr. Edwards is singling out Mrs. Clinton, usually far more aggressively than Mr. Obama has done.
“I don’t think we have to stand quietly by,” Mr. Edwards said. “I know it’s the political thing to do — it’s the careful thing to do — but I don’t think we have to stand quietly by and say this is O.K., because it’s not.”
At eight campaign events over two days, Mr. Edwards heaped a steady barrage of criticism on Mrs. Clinton, challenging her positions on Iraq, Iran, Social Security and health care. He raised questions about her candor and character, casting her as the embodiment of a government that has failed the American people.
With increasing evidence he cannot proceed without a strong finish in Iowa, Mr. Edwards is sounding not only different than he did four years ago, but different than he did six months ago. Asked whether his message resembled that of Howard Dean’s, whose former campaign manager is now a senior adviser to Mr. Edwards, he responded, “I think I sound like John Edwards.”
Still, the Iowa caucuses are a test of organizational strength, and no candidate has invested more time in Iowa than Mr. Edwards, who more than five years ago began prospecting for his first presidential race, which ultimately ended in a second-place finish here. Now, the future of his candidacy rests on planting doubts about the invincibility and electability of Mrs. Clinton, without damaging his existing relationships with Iowa voters.
“Iowans are more interested in what you are for as opposed to who you are against,” said former Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa, a co-chairman of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign. “But he’s got some very committed supporters, make no mistake about that. And he’s very formidable. The question is whether he’s expanding his universe.”
To appeal to Democrats infuriated by Washington, Mr. Edwards is employing unusual approaches. While he was the first candidate to present a health care plan, he no longer dwells on details of his proposal. Instead, in city after city, he threatens to take away health insurance for members of Congress if they do not overhaul the system by July 2009, six months after he would take office.
When asked in the interview how a president could deliver on the threat, Mr. Edwards said, “The goal of this is not to take away their health care.” But he said he would mount a strong campaign in the districts and states of lawmakers who oppose his plan, saying: “You’ve got to ratchet the pressure on them somehow. And I think this ratchets up the pressure.”
Then Mr. Edwards seized on the health care discussion to criticize Mrs. Clinton once again. He said she would be unable to enact health care change because she accepted money from lobbyists.
“I keep getting asked, Is she corrupt?” Mr. Edwards said. “I don’t believe that, but I do believe that she’s part of a system that’s corrupt.”
In more than two dozen interviews with people who came to see Mr. Edwards in Iowa, voters said they expected the candidates to distinguish themselves from one other. In many cases, they said they welcomed his pointing out differences, because they were having a difficult time choosing a candidate.
Again and again, though, voters warned against turning too negative. “I think there is a real risk of them beating each other up,” said Mary Jo Wagner, an elementary school principal in Waterloo. “The Democrats must present a unified front.”
In the final two months before the balloting begins, Mr. Edwards’s candidacy is at a critical juncture.
While Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama have been advertising for months, Mr. Edwards began his first significant television campaign last week. The campaign is sending more fliers and brochures to voters — including a colorful biographical piece featuring a picture of a young Mr. Edwards in a football uniform — because the spending limit for mail applies only to the final 28 days of the race. So when the other candidates are sending out a flurry of last-minute mailers, aides concede that Mr. Edwards could be at a disadvantage.
Instead of broadcasting a fusillade of attack ads, Mr. Edwards is relying on himself to be the messenger. At each of his campaign stops, he reserves time at the end of his remarks to bluntly ask voters to take their roles seriously, reminding Iowans that they will narrow the field of candidates.
“In so many ways, you’re the guardians of what kind of human being we’re going to have as president,” he said. “And you get to judge us.”
Christine Hauser contributed reporting from Ottumwa, Iowa.