Democratic Dispatches

A week ago, Betsy Tabor knew virtually nothing about John Edwards. But she left impressed after watching the North Carolina senator with the youthful good looks and Southern accent talk to an overflow crowd last Wednesday at a VFW hall in this coastal city.

So Tabor returned Monday for another sampling, joining some 700 people to hear Edwards speak beneath the soaring curved ceiling of Portsmouth’s 175-year-old South Church. It didn’t matter that it was the same speech she had heard before, or that she had to sit in the balcony and peer around a massive metal chandelier to get a full view.

“He really turned my head,” said Tabor, 53, a writer and artist. “This guy is going to set people on fire.”

Edwards’ last full day of campaigning before today’s primary unfolded much like his candidacy has -- a progression that could be good news for a man few people gave much chance of advancing through the Democratic presidential primaries but who has emerged as a popular figure, as much for his positive style on the stump as for his policies.

He began the morning at a small breakfast gathering in a chrome-heavy, ‘50s-style diner on busy East Broadway in Derry, about 20 miles south of Manchester. Then he progressed through ever-larger events; by evening, aides were scrambling to move a speech in Concord from an elementary school to a middle school when it became clear he would draw more people than expected. The change was made and more than 800 turned out to hear him.

Throughout the day, Edwards maintained a disciplined consistency, directing only mild swipes at rivals and answering most questions with variations of his campaign themes. Those themes -- rooted in a condemnation of what he sees as a society divided by class and race -- don’t change because, he said, they reflect his core values.

“If I can’t win being what I am, then I can live with that,” Edwards told reporters Monday afternoon aboard his Real Solutions Express campaign bus. “What I can’t live with is not being who I am.”

Edwards refused to speculate on how he’ll fare today, but he struck a hopeful tone.

“If you go to the events, it feels very similar to what it felt in Iowa,” Edwards said, referring to his surprise second-place finish in that state’s caucuses.

But as he sat at a kitchenette table with his wife, Elizabeth, he noted that “it’s a bigger field here” -- retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark and Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut did not compete in Iowa -- and “the polls are kind of all over the place.”

He added, “It’s harder to tell what’s actually happening.”

That uncertainty played out Monday morning at Mary Ann’s Diner in Derry. Linda Watson, 40, showed up as the first stop of three political outings she planned, hoping to catch Lieberman and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts at events later in the day.

“I want to hear them all, the way they talk,” Watson said. “Every guy is going to lie -- it’s politics. They’re going to promise things they can’t do, but they have to be able to speak well and get their point across.”

Watson listened to Edwards’ speech as she worked on a plate of pancakes and sausages, washing it down with a glass of Coke. Afterward, she said Edwards remained a contender for her vote.

“Everything he said made sense,” she said. “It didn’t sound like he was making a lot of stupid promises he can’t keep. In fact, he didn’t do a lot of promising at all.”