KEENE, N.H. – The trio is down to two, former Sen. John Edwards argued Sunday.

Edwards, of North Carolina, tried to escort Sen. Hillary Clinton out of the presidential campaign Sunday, telling voters the race for the Democratic nomination was a choice between himself and Sen. Barack Obama, of Illinois.

Poll numbers and campaign bank accounts, however, showed Edwards as the third wheel in New Hampshire, despite a second-place showing in Thursday’s Iowa caucus. In a new television ad in New Hampshire Edwards describes himself as an “underdog running against two candidates with $200 million between them.”

He gave Clinton’s standing less weight when talking outside Keene State College in Keene: “Polls are meaningless.”

Edwards campaign adviser then Joe Trippi reinforced the brushing off of Clinton: “She took third (in Iowa) last time I checked.”

Edwards’ sharper rhetoric followed his siding with Obama during a televised debate Saturday in New Hampshire. Strategists have said if Edwards can whittle down Clinton’s support and finish better than the distant third that polls suggest, he may be able to keep his campaign viable.

Edwards portrayed himself and Obama as candidates of change – but said Obama is too darned nice about it.

Obama “has a more philosophical, academic approach to it. He thinks you can negotiate with these people,” Edwards said after a town hall meeting in Manchester. Edwards was talking about the insurance firms, drug companies and other interests that he pillories in his stump speeches as corrupting the nation’s government.

Edwards says he is the fighter who will battle on behalf of the working class, a mantra that earned him the title “today’s Trotsky” from conservative columnist George Will on Sunday, referring to the intellectual father of Russia’s communist revolution in 1917.

Clinton is the candidate of the status quo, Edwards said.

The message was working with some voters.

“Hillary is part of a big political machine,” said Bruce Lappen, 49, a production supervisor at a custom T-shirt company in Manchester. “A younger generation is taking over.”

Lucille Beaulieu, a mortgage banker, remained unconvinced after hearing Edwards in Manchester and said she likely will support Clinton: “Hillary’s not done,” she said.

Edwards underscored his anti-corporate message at events throughout Sunday, with emotional remarks by families who waged their own battles against corporations.

The parents of Nataline Sarkisyan, of California, told the crowd how CIGNA, one of the nation’s largest health insurance companies, initially refused to pay for a liver transplant for their 17-year-old daughter. The company reversed their position under public pressure but only shortly before the girl died.

“This could happen to any of us,” Hilda Sarkisyan, Nataline’s mother, told the crowd. “They cannot tell us who is going to live and who is going to die.”

Edwards used the Sarkisyans’ saga to undercut Obama, who talks about uniting the country, about working with opponents and reaching consensus.

“They negotiated,” Edwards said of the Sarkisyans. “They worked with the insurance company. They filled out the paperwork. Nothing happened until they fought, until they stood up.”

The Clinton campaign responded Sunday, saying Sen. Clinton has a history of helping families, not just using them as talking points.

Edwards shot back that Clinton’s campaign “has no conscience” and sees the campaign as about themselves instead of about families who have suffered at the hands of insensitive corporations.

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(c) 2008, The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.).

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PHOTOS (from MCT Photo Service, 202-383-6099): CAMPAIGN-NH

AP-NY-01-06-08 1857EST