While  the other candidates in both parties pander to the voters, tweaking their campaign speeches as they read the polling results, Edwards has stayed remarkably focused on promoting his populist message.

Mr. Edward’s commitment to his ideals may come from the fact that he has never forgotten his humble beginnings. Born in Seneca, South Carolina and raised in rural Robbins, North Carolina, he is the son of working class people. His father, Wallace, was a mill hand, his mother, Bobbie, a shopkeeper and former postal worker.

Mr. Edward’s himself once earned his living working beside his father in the mill, since shut down  - as have most of the mills in the rural south - while companies move their businesses overseas to increase their profit margins. Mr. Edwards says it was in working in the mills that he “developed his strong belief that all Americans deserve an equal opportunity to succeed and be heard.”

Nothing like being a party to injustice to light a fire in one’s belly. The closing of the mill where his father had worked for 36 years did just that. John Edwards became the champion of the “little guy,” first as a trial lawyer where he won millions for his clients and himself righting injustice. Later as a member of the Senate representing his North Carolina. 

Now the former Senator’s speeches are filled with the promise to build One America. He says things like: “everyone should have a fair opportunity to realize their dream.”  Mr. Edwards wants an America where “every American can work hard with the promise that with hard work you can build a better life.”

All true, and his quest is a noble one, but who exactly is it that Mr. Edwards is speaking to?

Populist messages haven’t worked very well for candidates in the recent past. Al Gore tried it, and it may have cost him the presidency.  Mr. Edwards touted the same message in 2004, and although he did come in second in the Iowa Caucuses, and a few other primaries, his message didn’t take him very far in his first quest for the presidency.

While statistics define America’s middle-class as constituting 45% to 49% of American households, few Americans will readily define themselves as they did in the “old” days as “working stiffs.” Many will  refer to themselves as “upper-middle-class” as if this somehow distinguishes them from being middle-class.

In other words, some of the middle-class seem to want to deny the fact that they are indeed, working stiffs – the cog in America’s economic wheel.

During the nearly eight years of the Bush Administration there has been an assault on their pocketbooks of the middle-class. Oddly, America’s middle-class has been strangely silent against that assault. It seems that unlike Senator Edwards, some would rather forget their humble beginnings.

Thankfully for Mr. Edwards, not all. Out there in Iowa, in middle-class country, they seem to be hearing Mr. Edward's message. A Times/Bloomberg survey this week showed that Edwards has moved from third place in September to first among likely Iowa Democratic caucus-goers whose annual household income is under $40,000. Polls show he is continuing to gain ground, and newspapers are using words like, "surge."