Looks like last month's
Iowa Poll has started to attract some significant attention. From the July 17 issue of Newsweek:
One Hug at a Time - John Edwards is Back
"Thirty-seven million of our people, worried about feeding and clothing their children," he said to his audience. "Aren't we better than that?" It's not the stuff of great sound bites, but it's part of Edwards's new political plan: a presidential campaign with fighting poverty as a central plank. It's a risky strategy in today's Democratic Party -- Edwards may be the most viable national candidate since Bobby Kennedy to tie his destiny to a fight for the destitute. "Yeah, I heard all that stuff: 'Who cares?' or 'It's a dead end'," Edwards tells NEWSWEEK. "Well, it's what I want to do."
In the same sentence with Bobby Kennedy ... not bad. While it may be a "risky strategy" to stand up for the poor and the weak, taking such a risk demonstrates
vision, moral values and integrity. And it tends to make a candidate awfully difficult to attack.
From later in the article:
His under-the-radar strategy is paying off, in Iowa at least. A June Des Moines Register poll of likely Democratic caucus-goers had Edwards leading a pack of potential presidential candidates that included other widely known names like Clinton, 2004 ticketmate John Kerry and even Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack. Edwards is certainly not the only candidate hustling in corn-country -- Warner and Bayh visited within days of his most recent visit -- but with 10 trips to the state since the beginning of 2005, he's logged more time there than any candidate in either party. This time, they're counting on Iowa, which brought John Kerry's candidacy back from the dead in 2004, to propel them into New Hampshire, and beyond.
His strategy is paying off, because he's playing to his strengths: Retail politics. Combine that with the name recognition he acquired in 2004, and Edwards is going to be very hard to catch in Iowa. Apparently, Kerry suspected that Edwards would be tough to beat a second time, if it came to that, in 2008:
Relations between the two men were always more functional than friendly, and the two Johns are now eyeing each other as potential opponents. There is history here: before inviting him to join his ticket, Kerry asked Edwards if he would run against him in 2008 in the event they lost the election the first time around. Edwards, according to two former campaign aides who asked not to be named describing closed-door discussions, was taken aback and ducked the question.
Edwards already leads in Iowa among the candidates who are well-known, and his high favorability numbers indicate that he's likely to build on that lead. In fact, his unfavorable numbers are the lowest of any Democrat running, including those who are largely unknown by voters. Later in the article, the writer discusses the obstacles facing candidates who are only now getting out of the gate:
His advisers learned in 2004 that the hardest hurdle a candidate faces is simply getting voters to remember his name. That's not a problem in Iowa anymore, they say. "A Warner or Evan Bayh would have to spend $30 million to get where Edwards is," says an aide who asked not to be identified speaking about a still unannounced campaign.
True, the Iowa Caucuses are still 18 months away. But the major media appear to have figured out that the 2008 presidential campaign has not only started, it's well under way.