Veteran Campaign Spouse Displays Her Skills on the Trail While Talking Politics, Not Cancer

May 4, 2007 — -- Elizabeth Edwards' cancer may be the first thing that people think about when they see her on the campaign trail. But while that may be topic A on many minds in the audience, the veteran political spouse didn't even mention cancer while campaigning in New Hampshire this week.

Instead she talked about her husband's stands on political issues and why voters should support her husband's run for president.

Edwards has a busy summer of campaign stops planned. She admits she's not spending the summer hanging out on the beach and she jokes with the crowd that she's not entering bikini contests either. Instead Elizabeth Edwards is focusing her considerable campaigning skills on the contest to win the Democratic nomination.

During a full day of campaigning in this key primary state, Edwards never mentioned her stage-four cancer. While mingling in the crowd, audience members occasionally mentioned her health. She thanked them for their concern, assured them she felt fine and quickly shifted gears to focus on subjects like John Edwards' stance on Iraq, energy, education and poverty.

While watching her handle the crowds and media in New Hampshire, it is easy to see that she is experienced in the role of candidate's wife.

A wife you'd soon forget just seven weeks ago professed to the world her cancer had returned.

Been There, Done That

Edwards has done this before, and it shows. Other than former President Clinton, she is the only political spouse this year who has experience with campaigning on a national ticket.

She has certainly learned that political staging can be as important as the political message.

At a campaign stop at a law firm office this week, Edwards beelined for the back of a conference room where the only five "John Edwards" signs were hung. "I've been in politics long enough to know, you find the signs and you go stand in front of them," Elizabeth jokingly commented while at a midafternoon campaign stop at Rath, Young & Pignatelli law firm in Concord. While being introduced, a sign slipped and she dutifully reposted it on the wall, smiling as newspaper photographers took her picture.

At a morning event in Manchester, she was hooked up with a cordless microphone, affixed to her green suit blazer for ease of talking without holding a microphone. But still she took the regular handheld microphone in addition and asked rhetorically in front of the cameras, "Am I just holding this as a prop?" She knew the answer to her own question; just like she knew to give a shout out to the most important primary states -- New Hampshire, Iowa and Nevada -- mentioning them all by name just a few minutes into her first speech.

In addition to knowing how to finesse the staging part of campaigning, she also knew the basics. She glad-handed until there was no one left in the room, she never broke her smile, and she made sure to repeatedly thank her campaign partner that day, abortion rights activist Kate Michelman, a key Democratic ally who recently came onboard the Edwards' campaign as a senior adviser.

While showing such political seasoning, there was one first that Edwards did encounter. At the grand opening of the John Edwards for President New Hampshire campaign office, she added one more thing on her campaigning resume and for the first time in her life cut the classic red, white and blue ribbon, to officially mark the opening.

"I get to do something which I have to admit I've never done before and I'm 57 years old," she proclaimed. "My dad was in the Navy, so trying to do it with a champagne bottle, but I guess a pair of safety scissors will have to do."

After strategically turning toward the TV cameras, with one snip through the ribbon, Edwards had one reason more to be called an experienced campaigner. "For team New Hampshire, it's time to get to work!" she told the assembled crowd of supporters.

The Policy Meat and Potatoes

"There will be no reason for a New Hampshire voter to go into the voting booth next January and not know where John stands on any issue," Edwards proclaimed multiple times at multiple campaign stops throughout the day in New Hampshire.

Discussing the former senator from North Carolina's stance on "the issues" was the majority of Edwards' pitch to voters. She's knowledgeable about the Edwards platform. When she didn't know an answer to a question on policy, which was not often, she urged voters to check out the Web site.

Besides being a surrogate speaker for the candidate himself, reciting her husband's policies, Edwards also showed personal investment and passion for many of the topics, especially the war in Iraq and terrorism.

Urging voters to call their congressmen and senators to speak out against the president's veto on the Iraq War funding bill, Edwards pleaded, "I think Congress should stand strong. Send a bill back with a timetable. Then send another bill back if that one is vetoed. The president, not Congress, will be creating the stalemate."

Calling the president's troop surge a "complete and total failure," Edwards was no holds barred on what she thinks Congress ought to do to trump the president's denial to approve a bill with timetables with Iraq. "Do not start capitulation to a president who is going against the will of the American people."

Continuing with hits on the president, Edwards moved to terrorism and said unabashedly that the changes in security at airports are not enough. "We're protecting against yesterday's threat, that is our response to terrorism."

The voters in New Hampshire listened but their questions tended to veer toward domestic policies, education, abortion rights, gay rights and health care. She responded to each while echoing her husband's policy and stance on the issue. Often, especially on health care, she took pains to answer in utmost detail.

No Stepford Wife

The crowds in New Hampshire seemed to respond positively to Edwards.

"A lot of spouses come and look adoringly at their husbands. She's not a Stepford wife," one New Hampshire voter commented.

Six events, hundreds of pictures, and multiple Diet Cokes later, at the end of a long New Hampshire day Edwards finally packed it in. At her last event of the day, a Save Darfur rally at the University of New Hampshire, she spoke for only a few minutes, mostly reading a speech by her husband on the topic. She looked tired, but admittedly every reporter who had mirrored her schedule was pretty tired as well. Saying she had to get home to her kids, she left the event early to race to the airport.

"I'll be back," she promised the New Hampshire crowd.