Will Edwards Pull an Iowa Upset?

While John Edwards has been considered by much of the national media as the third man out in the in the juicy Clinton-Obama battle for the nomination, all of a sudden the former North Carolina senator is popping up in first place in a number of Iowa polls. And some analysts are even beginning to speak of an Edwards surge:

By local weather standards, it's a great Sunday morning. Bitter cold but no snow and no wind. And Alise Roderer, a young field organizer for the John Edwards campaign, is brightly encouraged by the tentative sunlight. Yesterday her volunteer canvass teams knocked on a thousand local doors. Today she hopes for the same.

"It's really, really important that you stress to the undecided that John Edwards is the most electable Democrat," she says to about 25 volunteers gathered in a steelworkers' union hall next door to the grimy Titan Tire factory.

The Edwards campaign is banking on the pent-up frustration of traditional and loyal Democratic voters, especially those in organized labor to muscle him to the top this week. "He's a strong Democrat and he's strong for labor," said 35 yr. old Robert Erwin, an Alabama steel worker in cammie pants and a baseball cap who came in to work this morning's Edwards phone bank in the union hall. Other union workers working the phones and getting ready to canvass hailed from California, Illinois and Wisconsin as well as some rubber workers from the Titan plant. Two college students from Seattle were running down phone lists to invite anyone who said "yes" to attend a Wednesday night John Mellencamp concert in support of Edwards.

John. . .Cougar. . .Mellencamp. . .? Hmmm. . .perhaps even I can be swayed . . .