"Edwards, back in the South, warmed by sun and crowds"

LA Times, Top of the Ticket political blog:

John Edwards returned to South Carolina today from another distant third-place finish, this one among the chilled, leafless trees of New Hampshire. It was a lot warmer as he stepped off the charter plane into the balminess of Liberty, S.C.

His staff -- not to mention The Times' Seema Mehta -- seemed rejuvenated in the warm weather as they headed off on a lighter campaign schedule than the typically jammed one he'd been following in recent weeks with half a dozen events crammed in morning till night, not to mention the 36-hour bus tours.

His first couple of days back in the South would be more relaxed. Today, the former North Carolina senator, who was born in South Carolina and handily won the 2004 primaries there, had two “homecoming rallies” on Wednesday. The first came at noon at Clemson University, which Edwards attended for one year and where he was a walk-on on the football team. Then, he had an evening event at a high school in Columbia.

The noon rally had 1,000 people attending in a brick plaza on the university’s sprawling campus under robin’s-egg-blue skies. Everyone who traveled from New Hampshire was in a jovial mood, meandering around the university’s gentle lawns. But the evening rally was insane, truly a homecoming. An amazing drum line from Dreher High School warmed up the overflow crowd of more than 500 ardent supporters.

The Bon Jovi song “Who Says You Can’t Go Home?” was playing as Edwards bounded onto an elevated stage in the school’s cafeteria.

“Man, it’s good to be back in South Carolina,” he told the roaring crowd.

This was the most intense, excited Edwards event Mehta has seen with him on the trail. His 17-minute speech, highlights of his routine stump remarks, came to a halt at least a dozen times, stopped by cheering supporters who made his remarks inaudible. And this is a man who speaks so loudly into a microphone, you rarely have to worry about your tape recorder not catching his remarks.

“One thing I learned growing up in mill towns and mill villages in the south," Edwards said, "including right here in South Carolina, is something all of you learned, which is … you’ve got to be willing to fight for your survival. That’s what this is about.

“You need a president who takes this cause personally, not someone who reads it in book. What’s happening here in South Carolina, not someone who has somebody explain to them what’s happening with mills closing, jobs leaving; what’s happening with the school system in South Carolina. You need somebody who understands personally and who takes this battle and this fight personally. I want you to know I was taught from the time I was this big that you never start a fight, but you never walk away from a fight. And we have a fight in front of us!”

South Carolina native Arletta Wilson had never attended a political event before, and was moved to tears by Edwards’ speech, particularly the references to American jobs being moved overseas and the 47 million people in the U.S. who don’t have health insurance.

The 46-year-old Eastover resident belonged to a union, but was laid off and now works at Wal-Mart with her husband Larry, 45. Larry was raised by his grandmother who toiled in a mill, and identified with Edwards’ invoking his father's and grandparents’ work in mills.

“Everything he said is the truth,” Larry Wilson said. “Everybody else is more worried about getting elected than what actually matters. He cares about what matters.”

So it was a good day back in the South for the former senator.