Hitting the Right Notes

John Edwards stood before the television in shock on Tuesday night. Joined by his family and campaign team at his state director's home in Columbia, S.C., Edwards watched as he was declared the winner of his native Palmetto State with 45 percent of the vote, compared to Sen. John Kerry's 30 percent--a margin no one in the Edwards camp had anticipated. "This is great," the North Carolina senator said with his unfailing composure. Then he repaired to a private room to prepare for his victory speech.

When he delivered it at a bar crammed with supporters, Edwards wove in one of his trademark touches. All day he'd been pondering how to convey the rationale for his campaign in a new way. So, as in his trial lawyer days--when he once channeled the voice of an unborn girl who died during delivery--Edwards conjured the image of a child who embodied his message of lifting people up. "Somewhere in America, a 10-year-old little girl will go to bed hungry, hoping and praying that tomorrow will not be as cold as today," he told the crowd. "She's one of 35 million Americans who live in poverty every single day, unnoticed, unheard." Add this to Edwards's retinue of poignant--bordering on cloying--tales that he has recounted continuously on the campaign trail to try to humanize his populist themes and connect with voters.

So far, it's an approach that seems to be working. Edwards has now logged his first victory, after surging to second place in Iowa and finishing respectably in New Hampshire. Repeatedly referring to South Carolina as a "dog fight," a "showdown," and a "bellwether," his campaign strived to freight the contest with as much significance as possible, in the hopes of increasing his bounce from a win. As Edwards put it on primary day, the race in South Carolina shows "whether you can win in the South, whether you can win in rural areas, and whether you can be an attractive candidate for African-American voters-all ... of which are critical for a Democrat to win in the fall." Now the campaign is hoping the field will winnow out. Sen. Joe Lieberman has already dropped out, and Wesley Clark's narrow triumph in Oklahoma--where he barely edged out Edwards by 1,275 votes--may send the retired general packing soon. "This is coming down quickly to a two-person race [against John Kerry]," says Edwards's communications director, David Ginsberg. Some of that may be wishful thinking: Howard Dean, who kept a comparatively low profile in yesterday's voting, is still mounting a vigorous campaign. Even if the former Vermont governor fails to win any states, he hopes to amass enough delegates to keep the nomination in his sights.

And as Edwards aims at his next targets--Michigan, Tennessee, and Virginia--the terrain is teeming with other obstacles too. For starters, there's the John Kerry juggernaut. The Massachusetts senator won five of the seven states that voted Tuesday, building on his victories in Iowa and New Hampshire. Edwards must now arrest Kerry's momentum without violating a vow to stay positive. That leaves Edwards to draw distinctions based on his life story and policy positions. Hence his tale of growing up in a small town as the son of a mill worker, in contrast to Kerry's upbringing as a globetrotting Boston Brahmin. Or Edwards's opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement--which he faults for devastating U.S. job losses--in contrast to Kerry's vote in support of it. "I think these differences will become clearer and clearer as the race focuses on the two of us," Edwards told CNN Tuesday night." But that may not happen in time to slow Kerry's surge. Take the case of Michael Davis, 44, a New Mexico voter who had already cast an absentee ballot for Kerry when he went to see Edwards speak in Albuquerque. "It makes me want to pull my absentee ballot out of the mailbox," he said after the event. "I wish I would have been exposed to more information" earlier.

The tension inherent in Edwards's position surfaced earlier this week. At a campaign stop in South Carolina, he told reporters that to bring change, the country needs "someone who hasn't been there [in the Senate] for 15 to 20 years," as Kerry has. And, he added, "I don't take contributions from lobbyists. He obviously does." The media--and the Kerry campaign--immediately seized on those comments as a sign that Edwards was turning strident. "It's not an attack," his spokeswoman insisted. "It's an important distinction for him." Perhaps, but it's also a sign of how confining a box Edwards has built himself.

Other vulnerabilities threaten to stall him as well. The Kerry camp, among others, has eagerly pointed out that although Edwards takes no money from lobbyists or political action committees, his campaign coffers are flush with money from trial lawyers. There's also Edwards's thin resume-featuring scant legislative and national security experience-compared to Kerry's exploits in Vietnam and two decades in the Senate. It's just one reason why Edwards can't seem to silence the pundits who persistently opine that he'd make a better vice president than chief executive. Moreover, by promoting himself so forcefully as the only contender who can compete in the South, he has risked coming across as something of a regional candidate. (His campaign counters that Edwards has run a national campaign and that his showing in Iowa proves he's viable in other regions of the country.) But now he must demonstrate that he can win. Little surprise, then, that he just announced that he'll compete vigorously in the Michigan primary on Saturday.

Despite such caveats, Edwards has reason to feel confident. Above all, his message resonates. While rivals may raise doubts about his gravitas on weighty foreign policy matters, exit polls in New Hampshire and South Carolina show that he's focusing on the issues that voters most care about: jobs, health care, and education. His opposition to NAFTA and emphasis on "fair trade" rather than "free trade" play well in states that employers have abandoned to relocate overseas. Those stances may also garner Edwards some crucial labor support. On Tuesday, he met for an hour with an alliance of 17 union leaders, who will decide on a possible endorsement after the Michigan primary. (The group was scheduled to meet with Kerry too this week.) Beyond the content of his message, Edwards is unmatched among his chief competitors when it comes to delivery. "He's got that touch," says Eric Davis, 47, who attended an Edwards town hall meeting in New Mexico. "He's real soothing, ... real folksy."

Edwards will aim to leverage those strengths as he carries his message to the next battlegrounds: Michigan, Virginia, and Tennessee. He'll continue to target rural and African-American voters, with campaign stops planned in such venues as Norfolk State University in Virginia, a historically black college. He'll hammer away at the themes that have served him well so far, like jobs and trade. And he may well continue to evoke that 10-year-old girl whose life is rife with hardship. People like her "are the reason I'm running for president of the United States," Edwards told his audience in Columbia. "Tonight we hear them." The question now is whether the voters will hear him.