With six weeks until New Hampshire primary voters make their choice, Democratic candidate John Edwards appealed to the undecided yesterday to measure candidates by their integrity. At a town hall meeting in Bow, he asked his audience to consider two questions.

"Who can you trust to tell you what's wrong in Washington?" he said. "And who can you trust to fight like hell to make it right?"

The campaign has labeled this week's events in New Hampshire, New York and Iowa as the "America Belongs to Us" tour. Edwards promised not to be part of what he called the "go along, get along" culture in Washington. He said his years fighting corporate lawyers have given him the determination to fight corporate lobbyists.

Edwards only peripherally mentioned Iraq, and none of the audience questions was about the war. Instead, he talked about his plans for universal health care, trade, the political establishment and campaign finance.

He said if primary voters vowed not to support candidates that take money from special interests, the candidates would stop accepting lobbyist money. Edwards continually has jabbed at Hillary Clinton while campaigning in New Hampshire and Iowa, saying she has taken more from lobbyists than any candidate.

"The idea that they have all the power is just in their heads," he said. "Ultimately, you have all the power."

Louis Duval said that he is one of "those holdouts" who hasn't picked a candidate. He held up a cap that read "NH" on the front. He said the tag read "union-made" on one side and "Made in Taiwan" on the other.

"Five jobs in my career have gone overseas and will never come back," he said.

He went on to talk about consolidated power among oil companies and food chains and the wealth of those nations that control the world's oil supply.

Edwards interrupted him. "Are you running, too?" he asked Duval.

Duval gave Edwards the hat, which he said he's had for about seven years. But, he said, while Edwards remains in the running, he's not quite ready to give him his vote.

Edwards said he grew up with the same concerns that Duval has. He watched the mill that supported his hometown close. He said trade policy has allowed jobs to go overseas to places with no environmental or child-labor standards.

"All for the purpose of padding the profits," he said. "All for the purpose of the almighty dollar for the few."

Edwards said that under President Clinton's administration, Democrats failed to pass universal health care but passed the North American Free Trade Agreement, on which he blames the loss of 1 million jobs.

"Does anybody really believe that if we trade a crowd of corporate Republicans for a crowd of corporate Democrats that anything is going to change?" he said.

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