Give him points for optimism: Delaware Sen. Joe Biden tells CNN that, if he finishes first, second or third in the Iowa caucuses, “then I believe I’m the nominee because all of a sudden the national press will have to cover me.”

Biden is raising expectations for himself a bit. Back in October, he said that he’d be out of the running if he didn’t finish in the top three in Iowa; now he says he’ll win the nomination if he does.

Recent polls from Iowa have Biden running fifth, behind Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards and Bill Richardson.

Edwards, campaigning in Iowa today, sought to improve his standing there with a double-barreled attack on George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton. Speaking in Iowa City, Edwards said that “George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and the neocon warmongers used 9/11 to start a war with Iraq, and now they’re trying to use Iraq to start a war with Iran.” By voting in favor of the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, Edwards said, Clinton “sided with Bush and the neocons, helping them rattle their sabers and build their case for another preventive war.”

Clinton has said that she opposes a “rush to war” in Iran and that Kyl-Lieberman was “not anything other than an expression of support for using economic sanctions with respect to diplomacy.”