Edwards Tries A Contrast

COLUMBIA, SC -- A few hours before the Democrats debate, ex-Sen. John Edwards will do something a little differently. At noon, he's scheduled to take a walking tour of Allendale, South Carolina, a small county about two hours southwest of Columbia.

Abundant with cotton fields and forests, Allendale is pretty to look at, but it is desperately poor. More than a third of all residents there live below the federal poverty line. -- the highest percentage in South Carolina. More than half of its residents lack health insurance. Most children do. The big business in Allendale is charity: dozens have set up shop there.

Edwards may point out the irony: the Lowcountry region of South Carolina, according to the Allendale County website, is "one of the fastest growing regions in the US." Perhaps in the other America.

Though there's an outpost of South Carolina State University there, Edwards isn't stumping for votes. He probably won't get too many. He is stumping instead for the contrast. By showing up there on an important day, his campaign hopes reporters will pay attention to his anti-poverty agenda and his detailed plan for universal health care coverage. The campaign also hopes that reporters notice that Sen. Barack Obama's first post-debate visit takes him to wealthy Charleston.

To win South Carolina again, Edwards cannot rely on past successes; he will not win the same endorsements he won in 2004; he cannot hope to outshine Obama or Hillary Clinton in mega-wattage. His only route to victory is to convince enough Democrats that his policies best represent the values of Democratic primary voters. So he will take his campaign to different places and try to emphasize different points. [MARC AMBINDER]