Edwards's populist roll of the dice

HENDERSON, Nev.
JOHN EDWARDS'S fate in the Democratic race for president will come down to undecided voters like LuAnn Holmes. A 41-year-old single mother, Holmes is a meetings facilitator in the city clerk's office here.

"I come from a long line of union members, so I know the issues," Holmes said before Edwards held a town hall meeting Thursday. "My child [a 9-year-old girl] has a reading disability and the resource programs she's in might be getting cut. My parents are getting older and they're on Medicare. My father is retired Air Force and I'm stunned at the cost of his prescriptions."

Holmes is precisely the kind of voter Edwards thinks he can appeal to in today's Nevada caucuses and next Saturday's primary in South Carolina. It is the 11th hour of his resilient, but not yet successful campaign to win over the union-oriented, struggling members of the middle and working class and people worried about healthcare costs.

Edwards hammered home those themes in his town hall. He talked about "universal healthcare for every man, woman, and child." He talked about paying for healthcare by "getting rid of Bush's tax cuts." He bemoaned veterans "sleeping under bridges."

Edwards tried to take advantage of what he depicted as a political gaffe by rival Barack Obama. In an interview this week with the Reno Gazette-Journal, Obama recognized both Republican Ronald Reagan and Democrat John F. Kennedy as symbols of national change.

"Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not," Obama said in a video on the Gazette Journal's website. Obama said Reagan tapped into a nation weary of the "excesses" of the 1960s and '70s, a nation that wanted "clarity," "optimism," and a return to "that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing."

The Gazette Journal endorsed Obama for the Democratic caucuses saying he "demonstrates the courage to stand his ground where necessary, willing for instance, to salute both President John Kennedy and President Ronald Reagan as agents of change in times when the country needed change."

Edwards got this crowd of between 200 and 300 people to rise to its feet by criticizing Obama. Edwards said Reagan "openly fought against the union and the organized labor movement in this country." Edwards said Reagan did "extraordinary damage to the middle class and working people. . . . Extraordinary damage to the environment."

Edwards closed the attack by saying: "I can promise you this: This president will never use Ronald Reagan as an example for change."

It is not clear if this will right Edwards's campaign, which faded from a strong second in Iowa to a distant third place in New Hampshire. Two polls here early in the week had him within 5 and 10 percentage points of either Obama or Clinton. But two polls yesterday, including one from the Las Vegas Review Journal, put Edwards 30 and 27 percentage points behind the leading Clinton (Obama was 5 and 9 percentage points behind Clinton).

For Holmes, Edwards's general passion and his comments on healthcare were enough to convince her to say she would urge her neighbors to caucus for Edwards. It was also enough for Ed Box, a 53-year-old temporarily unemployed from his job of flagging and signaling traffic around road construction projects. He said he would probably caucus for Edwards.

"All three of them have good things to say," Box said. "But I have a daughter and son 150 miles away from here. They have two kids [9 and 6] and they have no healthcare. My son makes lime for the chalk they use on football fields for $11 an hour. My son and daughter don't go to the doctor for themselves. They only go to the doctor for their kids."

Almost convinced was Carol Frey, 61, a retired realtor. She was originally for Edwards, but then switched to Clinton after being disappointed in Edwards's performance in the last Nevada debate. She said she was leaning a bit back toward him because "he has a passion that comes from the heart. He comes off as genuine. It will be a tough call."

Edwards, in an interview after his speech, said, "I don't want to overstate the case, but when they hear me, we do great. Just getting through the glitz of the media is the hard thing. When I get to spend a few days in some place I get a great response." The response he gets over the next week will determine how much the voters see him as an example of change.

Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson@globe.com.