Edwards: An "epic fight"

CARROLL, Iowa -- Democrat John Edwards, once the sunny populist, continued to cast himself as a combative fighter ready for what he called the "epic fight" against corporate influence.

Four days before Thursday's caucuses, Edwards is appealing to Iowans fed up with "corporate greed." On a sunny Sunday, he rode his bus caravan through western Iowa, drawing around 400 people to the small town of Boone and nearly 300 to a school library in Carroll.

At each stop he railed against corporate profits at Exxon and the influence of drug and insurance companies. "America doesn't belong to them, it belongs to us," he said.

Edwards told Iowa voters that he knows how to fight.

"I grew up in some rough neighborhoods," he said in Boone. "Where I grew up you had to fight to survive." He said his father told him never to start a fight but "never to walk away."

"We have a battle on our hands and better face up to it," he said.

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N.C. Secretary of State Elaine Marshall is in Iowa campaigning for Edwards. She said she planned to knock on doors to urge voters to caucus for him.