Biden pushes for 3rd in Iowa caucuses

Joe Biden's aides call it "Mo-Joe" — a last-minute surge of momentum and good luck they hope could power the Delaware senator into a better-than-expected showing in Iowa's leadoff caucuses.

"There's a fingertip instinct that tells me something is going on. I feel like I'm still in the game," Biden said in a telephone interview as he traveled to a campaign event in Cedar Rapids.

Aides acknowledge it remains an uphill trudge for Biden, a Democrat whose distinguished 35-year Senate career has been eclipsed by the star power of rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

But with all eyes on those two candidates and former Sen. John Edwards as they compete for the lead in Iowa, Biden is on a high-energy sprint across the state hoping to catch on with enough voters to make a difference.

He draws enthusiastic crowds to his events and last week began his first sustained TV ad campaign. He was approved for $857,000 in matching funds this week by the Federal Election Commission, helping to ease the financial pressure on his cash-strapped campaign.

Operatives for rival candidates say privately they've detected substantial pockets of support for Biden in some rural areas and in the ethnic, heavily Catholic industrial towns along the Mississippi River in eastern Iowa. Complicated caucus rules mean those pockets could produce enough delegates for Biden to have an impact.

With polls showing Bill Richardson's support appearing to fade and Chris Dodd still struggling to catch on, Biden's advisers are hoping for a strong fourth-place finish and say they can even envision coming in third. Their outside hope is for Biden somehow to overtake Edwards, who draws much of his support from the same blue-collar and rural voters Biden is trying to woo.

While it sounds like a long-shot scenario — Edwards has a strong organization in Iowa that he began building in his 2004 presidential effort — the Biden team suggests Edwards could stall before caucus night as voters consider which candidate is best prepared to deal with national security issues such as Iran and Iraq.

"Authenticity and electability matter," Biden Communications Director Larry Rasky said.

However, Edwards' spokeswoman, Colleen Murray, said the former North Carolina senator has strong momentum in the state and is the most electable Democrat in the general election.

"As Iowans are making up their minds, they know that John Edwards can beat the Republicans," she said.

Should Biden get any sort of bounce out of Iowa, his team believes he would fare well in other early voting states such as Nevada, where he would benefit from long ties to organized labor, and South Carolina, where he has the support of several black legislators and community leaders.

It's been a bumpy road for Biden, who spent much of the early part of his campaign explaining why he had called Obama "clean" and "articulate" in a newspaper interview and has often had to fight for air time in nationally televised debates. Still, the debates have generally served him well, allowing him to show off his sense of humor and expertise on national security issues.

He's also thrown a few memorable zingers, like saying the only words Republican Rudy Giuliani uses in a sentence are "A noun, and a verb and 9/11."

Biden said that no matter what happens Jan. 3, he's glad he undertook the adventure.

"I feel more passionately about issues now than when I entered politics," he said. "I'm going out, saying what I believe, laying out what I think should be done, and the response is good. There are an awful lot of people coming to take a look."