"Probably not," he answers, noting that the economics of moving those jobs overseas would have thwarted his efforts. "By that time, the company was too far gone," he continues. "We need to be honest with people that a lot of these jobs that have been lost are not coming back." I thought this was a sensible answer and one devoid of the demagogic tone that often creeps into his public remarks. My favorite Edwards conspiratorial rant came after the $400 haircut imbroglio in early 2007, when he told an Iowa audience, "They want to shut me up.... They will never silence me. Never. If we don't stand up to these people ... they're going to continue to control this country and the media.... They hate listening to people like me." (As a member of the media conspiracy, I swear we didn't try to silence you. Kucinich and Tancredo maybe. But not you.)

In other words, Edwards may wax like William Jennings Bryan when he's onstage, but behind the scenes he sounds like an anodyne Democrat in the mold of Harry Reid. Maybe Edwards is just pandering to a reporter from a business magazine, but I don't think so. If you look at the positions he's taken, they're really not that different from those of the other Democratic candidates, even though his rhetoric is decidedly more combative.

At the A.F.L.-C.I.O. debate last August, he ripped Hillary Clinton as the candidate of big corporations. (I should note that my spouse works for Clinton.) But if you look at the Clinton and Edwards health plans, the two candidates' largest single initiatives, they're so much alike that Edwards has accused Clinton of copying his. Both favor an individual mandate that requires everyone to buy health insurance, the same sort of plan that friend-of-business Mitt Romney came up with in Massachusetts, although with more stringent regulation of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Edwards' plan is expensive—about $100 billion a year to help employers and individuals pay for coverage—but it's not some wholesale assault on private health insurance, let alone the single-payer idea that many liberals favor. Some businesses may even find that they would shoulder less of the health-care burden under it.

Likewise, if you consider taxes, all of the aspiring Democratic nominees want to roll back the Bush income tax cuts for those making more than $200,000 annually. Edwards would raise the capital gains tax rate to 28 percent for wealthier Americans, whereas Clinton's and Obama's plans would increase it to 20 percent. But that's not an earth-shattering difference, and it's unlikely to be passed by Congress anyway. Rich people ought to be comforted to know that, for all his denunciation of special interests, John Edwards famously worked for a hedge fund, Fortress Investment Group, and he has received more money in campaign donations from Fortress employees than from any other business's staff. Would they give so much if he were Huey Long?