Languishing at the same third-place level in the polls all year, John Edwards is turning up the heat on his rivals, Michael Scherer reports for Salon.com:

"The choice for our party could not be any clearer," he continued. "We cannot replace a group of corporate Republicans with a group of corporate Democrats, just swapping the Washington insiders of one party for the Washington insiders of the other."

Of course, he never named the fellow travelers targeted by his broadside. But he left plenty of clues, given Hillary Clinton's time in the White House and Barack Obama's record fundraising. "The American people deserve to know that their presidency is not for sale," he said, "the Lincoln Bedroom is not for rent, and lobbyist money can no longer influence policy in the House and the Senate."

In one way, the onslaught was not surprising. In the ecosystem of the Democratic primary, Edwards is both the liberal lion and the populist prairie dog. He loves bashing corporations and their big wallets, and he often blames lobbyists for the nation's ills. It's a tried and true posture. He won his first Senate race in 1998 as the self-branded "People's Senator," running numerous ads that tied the incumbent Republican to "PACs and Washington lobbyists." He won a slot on the Democratic ticket in 2004 by promising to blur the dividing line between the haves and the have-nots.

Read it all at the link above. It should come as no surprise that Edwards, mired in a weak third place, should criticize those running ahead of him, however indirectly. Our popular culture has grown to despise "negative campaigning," but there is nothing intrinsically wrong with pointing out differences with other candidates' policies or character.

Those who believe politics has "become too nasty" ought review the two Adams-Jefferson campaigns, or the 1824 and 1828 elections. If they don't blush too easily, that is.

It's fair to criticize the opponent. Whether Edwards, a product of that most insidiously destructive of special interest groups, the civil trial lawyers, can gain by doing so remains to be seen. But, what the heck? He sure wasn't going anywhere hiding behind his wife's skirts and running on his "Better Hair for a Better Future" theme . . .