Think the 2008 general election campaign will be marred by the same kind of third-party character attacks that characterized the presidential contest 3 1/2 years ago?

If so, John Edwards is ready this time. The former North Carolina senator, who was the vice presidential running mate of John Kerry in 2004, has spent mountains of time in Iowa since then campaigning for the Iowa Democratic caucus now just 12 days away. Generally, as The Times' Seema Mehta has watched and listened closely to him on the campaign trail in these closing days, Edwards has been sticking to his positive populist message:

"What Iowa caucus-goers are looking for is not petty personal fighting between politicians," he often says. "They are looking for somebody who's actually willing to take on the corporate power and corporate greed that's standing between them and the country they believe in."

But Friday, Edwards came out with a far steelier, possibly more revealing response to one audience member's question. It was toward the end of a standing-room-only speech at a West Des Moines community college campus. A voter asked Edwards what he would do if he was ever faced with the same Swift Boat-style attacks that dogged, and some feel doomed, the 2004 Democratic ticket headed by Kerry.

"I will fight back with every fiber of my being," responded Edwards, who reportedly urged Kerry to fire back more urgently and effectively when his military service and Purple Heart were called into question during the 2004 election. "We will not let these people get away with this again."

"When they come after us," he added, "we have to go back harder than they come after us. We have to make them pay, because there's just too much at stake and you learn from these experiences."

"I can tell you from my own experience," Edwards continued, "if they come after me, they will pay in a way they cannot imagine when I come back."

So let that be a swift warning.

-- Andrew Malcolm