Elizabeth Edwards: Active Blogger

Howard Dean may have been the first presidential candidate who used the internet for his candidacy but John Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, has been on the internet for ten years and active. Micah L. Sifry of Personal Democracy Forum has a post on Elizabeth Edwards:

Of all the figures on the national political scene, there is only one person who I think we can genuinely say is participating in the blogosphere, as opposed to just using it: Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of Senator John Edwards, the once- and, it appears, future-Presidential candidate.

Elizabeth, who spoke at the PDF annual conference this past May, has been online for a decade, though mostly reading and commenting on blogs anonymously. But in the last year or so, she has been popping up on various blogs, including the Huffington Post, OrangePolitics, and ArchPundit, in her own name, and writing in a voice that is unmistakably her own. Whatever you may think of her and her husband's politics and ambitions, she deserves credit for actually embracing the culture of the net.

Sifry also has an e-mail interview with Mrs. Edwards that's worth reading. I understand that Elizabeth Edwards has been active at times on John Edwards' One America Blog.

Speaking of Mrs. Edwards, here's a review of her recent book, Saving Graces, by Christy Hardin Smith in Independent Weekly (Smith is better known by bloggers as one of the main posters on Firedoglake):

It is as though Saving Graces was written by an old friend, and when the book was finished, it was tough to close the cover for wanting to know what would come next. That rarely happens with memoirs, but this one is exceptional. And I say this having never met Elizabeth Edwards in my life. But as an attorney and mother myself, her love of family and her dedication to working on problems with education and poverty is inspiring and familiar in response to needs that I see in my own community.

In Saving Graces, Edwards shares a letter she received from "Steve C."—one of the many who wrote her in support after her breast cancer diagnosis became public—quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson: "You can never do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late."

Edwards must have taken it to heart, because Saving Graces is such a kindness to anyone who has hit a rough patch in the road and had trouble dusting himself off and starting again.

So is John Edwards going to announce this week? Maybe. North Carolina's ABC 11 reports:

Eyewitness News will be on the road with John Edwards when he makes his announcement in New Orleans. Look for live reports this Thursday right here on eyewitness news.

There are a lot of people in New Orleans, or who used to live in New Orleans, who didn't sleep too well this Christmas. But the president did. The Democrats have a lot of good candidates but 2008 can't come soon enough.