Democrat John Edwards juggled the roles of underdog and victor yesterday, coming off a second place finish in Iowa, where he just squeaked by Hillary Clinton, but facing an uphill battle to win New Hampshire, where he polled in the teens just before the caucus.

Edwards characterized the Iowa results as a victory for change and said that those voters who want it have a choice: Edwards or Obama.

"What we learned last night is that the status quo is yesterday, and change is tomorrow and tomorrow begins today," he said at an early morning rally in Manchester, echoing remarks from Thursday night.

He painted himself as the rough-and-tumble fighter - not the candidate with money or with "glitz," but the one with gritty resolve who can "galvanize America to this cause" of fighting corporate power.

By afternoon, he had embraced the metaphor that his wife, Elizabeth, had introduced in the morning of Edwards as Seabiscuit, the race horse of the 1930s who started his career with a losing record and became a champion.

"Seabiscuit was the horse of the working class, owned by a bicycle repairman and ridden by someone who wasn't supposed to make it," Edwards said to a crowd of about 350 at the Radisson Hotel in Nashua.

Later, during a speech to a standing-room only crowd of at least 550 at Portsmouth's Frank Jones conference center, he used a different analogy.

"New Hampshire knows what it's like to be the underdog and to run against a team from New York with all the money in the world," he said.

He said he likes being the underdog.

"I embrace it," he said. "I'm ready for this battle."

At each event, Edwards highlighted that he has been outspent by Obama and Clinton and that the media have portrayed the race as two-person, excluding him. But he said New Hampshire voters are independent and "a little ornery."

"No one is going to tell you who to vote for," he said in Manchester. "There is not going to be an auction in New Hampshire. There's going to be an election, and come Tuesday, we're going to surprise America."

The last event of the night, for which he skipped the Democratic Party's 100 Club dinner, was his strongest of the day. The crowd listened with quiet attention as he talked about loosening the "iron grip" that corporate power has on the United States.

"We're going to rise up as a people and say, 'Enough is enough,' " he said.

Political analyst Dean Spiliotes said Edwards may be trying to frame the race as between he and Obama, but Clinton's very close third place finish hasn't hurt her much.

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