CLINTON, IOWA — He knocks CEOs who "dump" employee pensions while "pocketing bonuses." He laments Maytag workers who "labored all their lives only to see their jobs shipped overseas." He recalls humble beginnings and says his experience is "rooted in the lives of the people."
That kind of hard-driving populism has formed the core of John Edwards' campaign for president. But those words have come this week from Barack Obama -- one of Edwards' chief rivals for the Democratic nomination -- who has recalibrated his campaign to appeal to working-class voters before Thursday's caucuses.
With Iowa's first-in-the-nation nominating event looming, Obama has shifted away from his almost singular emphasis on transcending Washington's partisan divisions -- a message that appeals to upper-income and independent voters who form a minority of caucus-goers. Instead, he is aiming for the working-class voters who are the party's core, and who have been moving to Edwards in growing numbers over the last few weeks.
The two candidates' campaign speeches and advertising sound nearly identical now -- stressing the needs and struggles of working people and the desire for change.
And each man is attacking the other's populist credentials -- often chiding one another more than they do Hillary Rodham Clinton, the national front-runner, who remains locked in a tight race in Iowa. The New York senator has built her base on a foundation of older voters and women.
"It's the race within the race," said Democratic strategist Chris Lehane, a former Clinton White House aide who is not working on a campaign. "Hillary has a block of demographics that is more identifiable, but Obama and Edwards are still vying for votes between themselves."
Obama's focus on the former North Carolina senator became apparent last week, when he criticized Edwards for ads on his behalf that have been paid for by a labor-union-affiliated political committee.
Edwards long has criticized the influence of such organizations, and Obama was seeking to undermine Edwards' claim of being a Washington outsider who would fight special interests.
Then Obama, a supporter of free trade, launched a television ad in Iowa that talked about the devastation left by an American business that moved its plant to China.
The shift came into even sharper view Friday as both men crisscrossed Iowa. They even made simultaneous, late-afternoon stops in the working-class town of Clinton.
