VINTON, Iowa - Meet John Edwards, Hillary Clinton's baby-faced tormenter - and the guy who just might be her last, best hope to stop Barack Obama in the early primary states.

Edwards, who is enjoying a late surge in the New Hampshire and Iowa polls, has staked his candidacy on a strong showing in the Hawkeye State, where his grassroots support is the envy of the Democratic field. But he's also gaining ground in the Granite State - New Hampshire - where he's moved from the low teens in early December polling into the low 20s this week.

Edwards has hammered Clinton on campaign finance and for her refusal to recant her Iraq war vote, but his rise, perversely, helps Clinton by dividing the anti-Clinton vote among two candidates.

"Clinton needs a viable John Edwards - her worst-case scenario is that Obama takes first place and Edwards comes in third here," said University of Iowa pollster David Redlawski. "If Edwards falls into irrelevance, that really hurts her because he's splitting the vote against her."

Clinton's advisers worry what will happen if Edwards were to falter in Iowa, according to sources in the campaign. His collapse could deliver his supporters, overwhelmingly anti-Clinton, to Obama in numbers great enough to push deadlocked New Hampshire and South Carolina into the Illinois senator's column.

The former North Carolina senator is locked in a three-way tie with his two rivals and a Mason-Dixon poll here released yesterday has Edwards leading with 24 percent, with Clinton and Obama at 23 and 22 percent, respectively.

"We're surging at exactly the time we need to be surging," says Edwards' top adviser, Joe Trippi, who said his candidate's gains have largely been drawn from Obama.

Redlawski says recent polls show Edwards gaining an edge over Obama among Iowa's crucial "second-choice" voters - Democrats who switch candidates after the first round of balloting in the caucuses.

Not surprisingly, Edwards and Obama are rediscovering their mutual animosity after a year of ganging up on Clinton. Obama has even begun attacking Edwards as unelectable, comparing him to his 2004 running mate, John Kerry.

"Part of the problem that John would have in the general election is that the issues that he's talking about now are not the issues or the things that he said four years ago, which always causes us problems in general elections," Obama told supporters in Keokuk on Saturday.

For weeks, the Clinton campaign has been quietly downplaying its own chances of winning, while pushing the idea that Edwards would win the caucuses.

But her pump-up-Edwards strategy goes only so far.

"If she finishes third, how can she recover?" asks Redlawski.

And that strategy can't compensate for her high negative ratings or her inability to encourage defections from Edwards and Obama.

"The people who love her aren't going to leave her, but she's also not able to move beyond her base of support," said Rachel Caufield, a politics professor at Drake University in Des Moines. "Hillary's frozen in concrete."

Edwards’ surge may pull votes from Obama

Third-place finish would hurt Clinton

Three front-runners in virtual three-way tie here and here and here.

By Glenn Thrush, Newsday, December 31, 2007