Folks around Edwards see signs of Iowa repeat

[surfermaw]

Folks around Edwards see signs of Iowa repeat
N.H. crowds and support swell as polls show him moving up in the pack
MARK JOHNSON AND JIM MORRILL
Staff Writers




KEENE, N.H. - Sen. John Edwards pushed through New Hampshire Sunday looking for the same kind of surge that carried him to a surprising second-place finish in Iowa last week.

And there were signs of a possible sequel.


Just as in the final days before Iowa's caucuses, Edwards has drawn overflow crowds. Two days before the nation's first primary, the N.C. Democrat has risen in the polls.


A poll in Sunday's Boston Herald showed him in third place -- behind Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean but ahead of retired Gen. Wesley Clark.


The paper said "a hard-charging" Edwards threatened Dean for second.


Other polls showed him trailing Clark but within striking distance of all but Kerry.


That's a marked change from as recently as two weeks ago, when New Hampshire polls showed Edwards floundering in single digits, just as he was in Iowa earlier this month.


"Edwards is definitely picking up ground," said James Pindell, managing editor of PoliticsNH.com. "The race between second, third and fourth is so fluid."


An appearance at a Nashua junior high school Sunday turned into a double feature when Edwards spoke first to 500 people who packed the bleachers and filled the gym and then to at least 300 diverted into the cafeteria.


With less than two days before one of the most important and publicized elections of the year, it's hard to judge momentum on crowds alone. Clark, for example, drew more than 900 people to a gym at Daniel Webster College in Nashua Sunday.


But at a moment when many voters are still shopping for their candidate, Edwards is nudging -- or completely swaying -- many of those who drop in to hear him. His message: ending the "two Americas," one that favors the rich and one where the poor and middle-class struggle.

More
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/7797451.htm