MANCHESTER – Sen. Joe Biden says the three front-runners in the Democratic presidential race are using "Bill Clinton triangulation" and "Karl Rove anger" to deliver a divisive message as they fight for approval of the party's liberal base.

It's an approach Biden says will make it nearly impossible for the one who survives the nominating battle and the general election to govern effectively.

Biden, a 35-year Capitol Hill veteran who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is fighting for even a small fraction of the media attention paid to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards.

Long known as much for being brutally honest -- sometimes to the point of verbal gaffes -- as for his foreign policy expertise, Biden, 64, was tough on Clinton, Obama and Edwards in an interview on Thursday.

U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks to New Hampshire Union Leader reporters Thursday (THOMAS ROY)

Biden also said the Democratic Party "has lost faith in the American people in terms of leveling with them." And he gave a frank assessment of his own longshot chance of becoming the Democratic nominee.

Biden acknowledged his words sometimes get him into trouble. It happened in New Hampshire 20 years ago, when he challenged a local man to compare IQs. "I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do," Biden said at the time.

Now, Biden shakes his head and laughs. "Right on the ball," he said with self-deprecating sarcasm. "I was ready to be President, huh? That's why I had two craniotomies. I had them go in and take out the temper cord." Biden was hospitalized twice in 1988 for cerebral aneurysms.

Biden said his primary rivals and the Democratic Party in general have learned nothing from "the whipping we took the last two times" in presidential elections.

"I am, quote, liberal as it relates to social issues," he said. "But you've never heard me make a populist argument about the rich and the poor," a key aspect of the Edwards-Clinton-Obama approach. "I don't believe it, number one, and I don't think it's how you win.

"Rich folks are as patriotic as poor folks, but we (Democrats) don't talk that way," he said.

Biden said "all of the candidates" of his party "have cast their lot in a way that has increased the degree of difficulty of winning a general election in toss-up states."

He said nothing has been learned from the fact that elections focused on energizing the two major parties' conservative and liberal bases, while ignoring the idea of building consensus, have led to virtual gridlock on major policy issues in Washington at a critical time in the nation's history.

"This tendency in American politics is that we learn the wrong lessons from one another," Biden said. "We pick up the tactical successes of the outfit before and it is just a race to the bottom. I mean, really and truly, it just keeps going. It's like a spiral.

"I talk about the fact that we've got to trust the American people more," he said. "I'm not acting like the honest guy in the corner. I'm a politician. But I really think my party kind of learned the wrong lessons. I think they really lost faith in the American people in terms of leveling with them.

"I think most of the major Democrats think the way to win is through Bill Clinton triangulation and Karl Rove anger," said Biden. "Go to your base. Get your base riled up. You go out and make someone the boogie man."

Biden said such an approach will make Clinton, Edwards or Obama "lightning rods" in the general election, while he, as a self-described consensus-builder, will have a "15- to 18-red state strategy.

"With any of the top three," he said, "you will see a 20-plus-five strategy, the same 20 states we won the last two times and five other swing states.

"My problem with that is -- and you're going to think this is pure political crap -- I don't want to be President if that's the way I have to win. Because if I win, I can't govern that way. How the hell do you establish a consensus?"

But how can Biden, despite his lengthy Capitol Hill resume, become the nominee? He's consistently run in single digits in polls in New Hampshire, first-caucus state Iowa and nationally. His job as chairman of an important and powerful committee has kept him off the campaign trail more than he would like, and, he says, he is far from being a fund-raising machine.

According to Federal Election Commission filings, as of Sept. 30, Biden had raised $4.5 million for his campaign and had less than $2 million on hand. Clinton, by comparison, had raised $73 million and had $50 million on hand.

Biden said he lags behind because as a senator from Delaware who is routinely reelected, he does not have a large fund-raising network. And, he says, "I'm not big on interest groups.

"I haven't met with a lobbyist in 35 years as a senator. I won't do it," he said, acknowledging, however, that the ban does not apply to his staff.

Biden also cited the "phenomenon" that is Clinton and Obama, "two people who have gotten an inordinate amount of free publicity, more than any two people have ever received in presidential history. That begets money."

Said Biden, "People say, 'You're the most qualified guy, but you can't win the primary. You can win the general election, but you can't win the primary.' Why can't I win? Because I don't have any money. Why don't I have any money? Because they say I can't win."

But Biden said he hopes to raise enough money before Dec. 1 to purchase television advertising in Iowa and New Hampshire and begin to make headway.

He said the rush by several big states to the front of the nominating calendar has made Iowa and New Hampshire's contests more important than ever, and so his fate lies entirely with those two states.

"If I come out of Iowa one, two or three, I'm in the game." If not, "I think I'm probably gone," he said. "If there's not a headline in the paper that says that Biden exceeded expectations, then I think it's probably over. But then again, if Richardson, Obama, Edwards or Dodd don't do that, then I don't think they're going to be the nominee, either."

Biden contended that the "serious press" has already concluded that neither Obama nor Edwards is "the courser that can carry the sleigh to beat Hillary.

"Everybody's looking for somebody as an alternative," Biden said. "I think I'm going to get my shot in the barrel here. If I come out one, two or three, I'm not likely to have to go through the prism of, is he capable of sitting behind the desk? That's not been my problem this time. I'm the guy who probably in the mind of a lot of Democrats, is, if not the most qualified, then qualified. It's a question of, 'Can he win?'"