"Rural Iowa's key to Edwards' strategy"

Des Moines Register (IA):

Cresco, Ia. — Presidential candidate John Edwards vowed today to continue courting support in rural areas as he tries to regain his lead in the Democratic Iowa caucus campaign.

Edwards touted his small-town, blue-collar roots before about 125 people gathered at a lumberyard here. “It’s part of who I am,” he said. “It is important to me that small communities are not forgotten. I think for some presidential candidates, they think of rural America as a place you fly over, you know, when you’re going from New York to California. Well, not for me. Not for me.”

The former North Carolina senator has campaigned relentlessly in rural Iowa since last spring. Today, he started a four-day, 17-stop swing through Iowa. Fourteen of those events were scheduled in small towns.

Speaking to reporters afterward, Edwards talked about his strategy. “The rural areas and the smaller towns have a disproportionate impact on the result of the caucuses, and so it is important to campaign and do well in rural areas,” he said.

Edwards apparently was alluding to a perceived quirk of caucus rules. Some strategists believe that because of the way state-party delegates are apportioned, a candidate could gain more by persuading 100 rural voters to attend several small-precinct caucuses than he could gain by persuading 100 urban voters to attend a single big-city caucus.

In Cresco and in a later stop in the northeastern Iowa town of Waukon, Edwards talked up his plans to help rural areas. He promised to spread high-speed Internet service to every corner of America, and he said he would make sure small-town businesses have access to capital.

He also said that he would give incentives of up to $15,000 per year to teachers willing to work in poor rural and inner-city schools, and that he would put a $250,000 limit on federal subsidies to farms, to keep that money from subsidizing large corporate farms.

Speaking to reporters, Edwards also responded to criticism he took last week from the rival campaign of Barack Obama. The Illinois senator’s aides portrayed Edwards’ acceptance of federal matching money and spending limits as a dangerous sign of fund-raising weakness.

They said the decision means that if Edwards won the nomination by late winter, he already would have reached spending limits that would be in effect until the August Democratic convention. That would leave him unable to respond to attacks by the Republican nominee, who probably would not have agreed to the spending caps, Obama’s campaign said.

Edwards portrayed his decision as an act of principle. He said Americans would respect his decision not to accept money from powerful interests, and he said that if he were nominee, he would not need to buy large amounts of advertising.

“Once it’s clear you’re the nominee, you have a huge bully pulpit. Huge. And you will get free media coverage like unseen before,” he said.

He also said the Democratic National Party and independent political groups could spend money to counter any Republican attacks on his campaign, although he acknowledged that he would not be in control of those countermeasures.