ON THE 14th anniversary of ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement, John Edwards stood with a dozen union steelworkers in the Derry elementary school cafeteria, and turned his indignation on those in power who don't care about regular people.

Sure, some jobs were created by ratifying NAFTA, Edwards said disdainfully, but other lower-paying jobs were lost in the process.

"They say America has done well, so what if there are some losers," Edwards told the audience. "Losers. That's the way they described hard-working middle-class families."

When he says the word "losers" he draws out the "o" with a Southern drawl so the word hangs in the air.

The former North Carolina senator and vice presidential candidate is unapologetically populist in his message as he campaigns through New Hampshire. When he speaks of what he says are the most important American values, he is cheerful and gazes across the crowd at some distant point, but when talking about Washington insiders and top executives for the health-care, pharmaceutical and oil industries, he seethes.

At stops in Bedford, Peterborough and Derry earlier this month, Edwards used down-home, folksy stories and his stretched vowels to emphasize a message to Granite State voters: I am not one of "them."

At every stop, his stump speech changed, although Edwards hit on the same themes, like his plan to severely cut back on carbon emissions and an increase in the minimum wage.

A question posed at a house party in Bedford would become a main talking point of his second speech, in Peterborough. The Derry event, sponsored by a local union, became the stage for his tirades against NAFTA. What remained constant at each event were the repeated references to his own family's blue-collar history.

In Bedford, Edwards spoke of a recent visit to the two-room house his parents lived in when he was born, and how only in America could someone from such humble roots become a presidential candidate. By Derry, the final stop of that particular New Hampshire swing, the story had developed.

"My parents were describing to me my grandmother walking from her house, which was right up the street, to the mill every day, with her apron on," Edwards told the Derry crowd. "And my grandfather, who was partially paralyzed, dragging one of his legs and making his way to the mills every day."

Edwards said his father had to borrow $50 to get his newborn son and wife out of the hospital.

"He never would have dreamed that his son would run for President," Edwards told crowds at all three events, extolling what he called "the promise of America."

If Edwards is not shy about talking up his humble roots, he also acknowledges that sincerity of the stories that candidates tell and trustworthiness are important to voters. At all of his campaign stops he urged voters to cast a critical eye on the candidates who come before them, even himself.

"You have reason to be cynical, and if I was in your shoes I would be cynical, too," Edwards said in Bedford. "You have to look at these candidates and say, 'Who do I trust?' If I were voting and not running, it would be the single most important issue."

Kent Portney, a political science professor from Tufts University who was at the Derry event with a group of students, said he found Edwards to be believable. Portney said the folksy stories and the outrage at health insurance companies that dominates large chunks of Edwards' speeches is genuine, but not in a way that is necessarily familiar to Granite Staters.

"It's 'Southern genuine,'" Portney said. "It's a little sweet, maybe too saccharine for some up here, but it's genuine. It isn't phony."

Portney, who lives in Massachusetts and so will not be voting in the primary, said he saw Edwards during his 2004 campaign and thinks he has toned down some of his folksiness and Southern mannerisms.

Judging from the audiences at each event, who during question-and-answer sessions returned again and again to the issue, Edwards' attack on insurance and pharmaceutical companies is one of the most popular planks in his populist repertoire.

Edwards pledged to tell Congress to pass universal health care within six months of his inauguration, or, he said at each event, he would use his powers as president to have theirs revoked.

"Congress keeps -- I wasn't going to say it, but I'll say it -- screwing around," Edwards said at one point in Peterborough.

The connection between members of Congress and lobbyists from insurance companies is too close, Edwards said, admitting he knows from personal experience as a senator, although he denies ever taking any contributions from them. It was one of the few times he mentioned his wife, Elizabeth, and her battle with cancer.

"If they all get fat, happy and complacent and are all buddies during the day and everyone goes to the same cocktail parties at night, what happens to America?" he asked in Peterborough. "What happens to women like Elizabeth who have breast cancer?"

During the question-and-answer session in Peterborough, an audience member complained that even if you have good health insurance you have to fight the insurance companies, who he bluntly called "SOB's." It is clearly not a scripted moment, and Edwards seemed amused.

"You're preaching to the choir, brother," he chuckled.