Democrat John Edwards is on the last legs of a "36-hour Marathon" across Iowa, making a last-minute appeal to voters.

The N&O's Robert Willett is along for the ride. Here are some scenes from the trip.

11 p.m.: Edwards stops by his Council Bluffs campaign office. As many as 200 people crowd inside and spill out into the cold. The temperature is in the single digits. Dan Shannon and his children had come from Chapel Hill to volunteer for the campaign.

1 a.m.: Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, leave the home of Denise O'Brien in the town of Atlantic, where they were greeted with New Year's fare of black-eyed peas, and cornbread. Helen Pigg, 86, recalls Franklin Roosevelt's 1936 visit aboard his campaign train. She's seen a lot of presidential
candidates.

More after the jump.

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Gov. Mike Easley won't be campaigning for John Edwards in Iowa.

Easley appeared at a campaign rally in 2004 for Edwards' first presidential bid. The former North Carolina senator needed the boost then, Easley told reporters Wednesday.

"Four years ago, nobody knew who he was basically, and, I hope I'm not talking out of school, but it was important for him, I think, to have a Southern governor stand there and say, 'I'm comfortable with this guy.'" Easley said.

Now, Edwards is probably the second-best known Democratic presidential candidate, behind Sen. Hillary Clinton.

"He doesn't need little old me anymore," Easley said. "The people in Iowa don't have a clue who I am, although some woman up there knew I had wrecked and if I had wrecked Terry Labonte's race car, she was going to kick my..."

Easley was, of course, referring to the time he crashed a stock car at Lowe's Motor Speedway in 2003. He lost control of another stock car at the Executive Mansion in 2005.

Iowa is regarded as a do-or-die election for Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, who has spent so much time in the first caucus state that he may have earned honorary Iowan status.

To underscore that point, Edwards on Tuesday began running his first TV commercial in Iowa, Rob Christensen reports. The 30-second spot includes video and voices of people from Iowa asking Congress to pass the supplemental budget bill that President Bush vetoed.

The ad is similar to one that Edwards aired in Washington last week.