Change in tone may have hurt an Iowa favorite Some past supporters are looking elsewhere

Four years ago John Edwards, a fresh-faced senator from North Carolina, blew through the Iowa countryside like a wind of populist change.

Enough with the intraparty bickering, he told local Democrats in dining rooms, union halls and small-town diners, as he railed against “two Americas” increasingly divided by class.

The message struck a chord in Iowa. Edwards won 59% of the vote here in Guthrie County, an hour west of Des Moines, en route to a second-place statewide finish in the 2004 presidential caucuses -- a showing that helped him land his spot later that year as Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry’s running mate.

Aiming to build on that Iowa support to propel his latest bid for the presidency, Edwards has been a regular presence in the state since he and Kerry were defeated by George W. Bush. Yet even though recent polls show that Edwards is only slightly behind Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama in Iowa, his support appears to have dropped off since 2004, when he took 32% of the vote statewide.

The defections, political analysts say, stem mainly from the stiff competitive challenges posed by Clinton and Obama and from changes in Edwards’ campaign style -- which, until recently, often had an angrier tone than in the previous contest.

Shelli Dawson, a part-time grocery clerk, is one of the voters who slipped away. Dawson, mother of an 18-year-old daughter with cystic fibrosis, supported Edwards in 2004 primarily because of his health plan. “He was the best man for the job,” she said.

This time around, Dawson is backing Clinton. “I want somebody in there who knows what she’s doing,” Dawson said, standing outside her small wood-frame house amid morning glories withered by frost.

It’s a different political stage from four years ago, when former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean’s campaign collapsed and Edwards’ last-minute endorsement from the Des Moines Register lifted a relative political unknown.

Now he’s well-known here, and many seeking a fresh face are turning to Obama, who does particularly well among young voters. Clinton, meanwhile, is faring well among women and others impressed with her experience -- including the Register, which on Sunday gave her its Democratic endorsement.

Another key factor is that Edwards’ credibility with Iowans as a champion of the poor has been hurt, said Iowa State University political analyst Steffen Schmidt, by accounts of his consulting work for Fortress Investment Group, which oversees hedge funds; his massive new house in North Carolina; and the infamous $400 haircut.

The Edwards campaign here dismissed the erosion of support, arguing that while it has lost the backing of some voters it has gained others. But it acknowledged that the well-financed competition had made a difference.

“Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama spent $6 million on TV ads before Sen. Edwards spent a dime, yet we’re in a three-way dogfight here,” said Dan Leistikow, Edwards’ Iowa spokesman. “We feel very good about where we are.”

Many of Edwards’ supporters from four years ago say they will stick with him in the Jan. 3 caucuses. Polls also show he is the favorite backup choice among likely caucus-goers -- an important distinction in a process in which candidates’ supporters often shift to other campaigns once their candidates no longer clear the 15% threshold for “viability.”

“I just like all his honesty, and his way of approaching things,” said Loa Benton, 89, who backed Edwards last time and is chairing his campaign in Guthrie County, in the heart of Angus beef country. “He’s right straight out with what he says. I like all of the ideas and how he’s going to attack the problems.”

Robert E. Feilmeyer, 69, a lawyer in Guthrie Center, also is backing Edwards for the second time, even though he finds some of Obama’s policies -- such as a “little more open” approach to immigration overhaul -- more attractive. The deciding factor: Edwards’ career as a trial lawyer, which Feilmeyer said established him as “the best lawyer in the United States.”

“I’ve worked with several very good attorneys over the years, and it’s incredible to me, their intuition on things,” he said, adding that he believes Abraham Lincoln’s legal training was why he excelled in the White House.

Yet erosion in Edwards’ support emerges in conversations with Iowans from the banks of the Mississippi River westward into the south-central part of the state, where his message resonated the strongest in 2004.

Peg Dunbar, a former Bremer County Democratic chairwoman in eastern Iowa who switched sides from Edwards to Clinton this summer, said the fact that Edwards hadn’t been able to build a lead in Iowa after campaigning here the last four years “tells me something’s wrong.”

Dunbar said that she liked Clinton’s experience as a former first lady active in the White House but that she decided to leave Edwards mainly because she was put off by his tougher tone earlier in the campaign. “It’s his attacks,” Dunbar said. “He’s not the nice guy anymore.”

That impression hasn’t been lost on the Edwards campaign. In early December, Edwards began toning down the rhetoric against his Democratic rivals and adopted a more upbeat approach evocative of his 2004 campaign.

“I’ve been through this before. I know what you do in Iowa,” he told reporters. He added that Iowans at this point in the campaign were “really concerned” about “our positive vision for America, and the specifics behind that.”

But it is too late to regain some of the folks he lost. Frank Best, a Muscatine art gallery designer, quit as Edwards’ Louisa County coordinator in late August, partly out of concern that Edwards had staked his campaign on Iowa and lacked a post-Iowa strategy. He signed up with Obama two weeks later, and believes that the Illinois senator has captured the upbeat sense of hope that infused Edwards’ 2004 campaign.

The Edwards campaign message “just didn’t feel like it did four years ago,” Best said. “It’s a little edgier right now. It’s sounding a little more desperate than it ever did.”

Some of those who left Edwards are politically influential, such as Mary Mincer Hansen, the state’s former health director. Hansen supports Clinton because she believes the New York senator is better able to “translate rhetoric into reality.”

All three of the leading Democrats address issues Hansen finds most important, particularly healthcare. But Clinton has fought that battle before, and Hansen believes she’s best-suited to fight it again.

“I didn’t run from another candidate; I ran to Clinton,” said Hansen, now a consultant based in Panora, about eight miles east of Guthrie Center. “My bottom line is, you really have to look at the person who you think can get it done. That’s where Clinton resonated with me.”

scott.martelle@latimes.com