MANCHESTER, N.H. -- John Edwards, in his first rally since the Iowa Caucuses, branded himself as the "people's candidate" as he struggles to fight for attention and supporters.

"I am not the money candidate. I am not the glitz candidate. I am not the glamerous candidate," Edwards said in brief remarks in Manchester's Millyard area. "I am the people's candidate."

Edwards is the only major candidate who plans to skip tonight's major Democratic Party fund-raising dinner in Milford. He says there are no independents in that audience (and he is probably right). Instead he will hold a town hall meeting in Portsmouth.

CONWAY, N.H. -- Responding to a question about media consolidation, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said that consolidation is a problem because it is "about different voices".

"I am not particularly interested in seeing Rupert Murdoch own every newspaper in America," Edwards said about the owner of the Fox News Channel and the News Corporation that is completing a purchase of the Wall Street Journal.

He said media consolidation was "very damaging" to American democracy and that a consolidated media give a "distorted view" of events.

It should be noted that Edwards received nearly $800,000 in a book contract from one of Murdoch's companies, HarperCollins.

NASHUA -- After going door-to-door at a dozen homes asking for votes, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said he doesn't expect the campaign to get more negative, but that he does expect it to become more intense.

"Having done this once before I know this is crunch time," said Edwards.

Edwards will also make stops today in Conway, Laconia, Manchester and Salem.

This is the last day he is spending in New Hampshire before the Iowa Caucuses next week.

A New Hampshire gay marriage advocacy group endorsed John Edwards's presidential campaign along with that group's executive director New Hampshire Freedom to Marry Coalition and its executive director, state Representative Mo Baxley, a Democrat from Andover.

Interestingly, Edwards -- along with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama -- do not support gay marriage.

It's all in the family these days for Democratic presidential hopefuls.

John Edwards's campaign announced this morning that his parents, Wallace and Bobbie Edwards, will host events across the Lakes Region and North Country of New Hampshire on Tuesday and Wednesday.

"They will talk with voters about how John Edwards' small town upbringing and work in the mills gives him a deep and personal understanding of the issues facing rural and working Americans," the campaign said in a statement.

Over the weekend, partly to blunt the Oprah juggernaut, Hillary Clinton brought out daughter Chelsea for the first time on the campaign trail. Along with Clinton's mother, Dorothy Rodham, three generations of the family sought votes in Iowa.

Family members can help humanize candidates, who can appear too political at times. And, in the case of Edwards' parents, they can add a personal touch to campaign themes.

-- Written by Foon Rhee

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- John Edwards said it was "silly" that Hillary Clinton brought up a kindergarten essay from Barack Obama saying he wanted to be president as a way of countering his claim that he hasn't been running for president his whole life.

"I have to confess on my own that I wanted to be either a cowboy or superman," Edwards told an audience of AARP members. "I think some of this stuff is silly and no one cares about it."

A Clinton spokesman later admitted it was a mistake to make an issue out of the essay.

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- The president of the Manchester Education Association endorsed John Edwards's presidential campaign while the union he represents, and that union's statewide organization, both have not endorsed anyone.

Scott McGilvray endorsed Edwards in a statement. Manchester teachers have been working without a contract for over 100 days.

BOW, N.H. – Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said New Hampshire voters should decide who to vote for based on issues of characters instead of issues.

Edwards said voters should look first to those they believe are telling the truth and then who they “trust to fight like hell to make it happen”.

But recent polling shows that Edwards may have trust issues of his own. A recent poll in Iowa said voters believed Barack Obama was the most genuine and most likely to say what he believes. Edwards was in second, while Hillary Clinton was in third.

Edwards is wrapping up a long weekend of campaigning in New Hampshire while rival Senators Hillary Clinton and John Edwards were in Iowa.

He was also critical of some in his own party who he believes won’t change Washington enough.

“I think the mistake we made is to believe that we just have to be better at this game of getting elected things will be better, but for what purpose” Edwards said.

Speaking at New Hampshire's largest medical facility, presidential candidate John Edwards proposed an expansion of the Family and Medical Leave Act that was authored by his rival for the nomination, Chris Dodd.

According to the Associated Press who got an advanced copy of the speech, Edwards "proposes spending $2 billion a year to help states create family leave programs that offer workers at least eight weeks of paid time off to care for a newborn or ill family member.The proposal is similar to those offered by his rivals, but Edwards would put up more money — New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's plan calls for $1 billion a year; Illinois Sen. Barack Obama proposes $1.5 billion. Edwards also would set a national goal of eight weeks of paid leave for all by 2014."

Edwards will also make stops in Manchester, Milford, and Salem later today.

Due to a technical glitch an email about John Edwards's trip to the state today didn't come through and I didn't mention it in the New Hampshire Today post.

So here is his schedule today:

1:15pm
Newmarket Town Hall with John Edwards
Stone Church
5 Granite St., Newmarket

5:15pm
Portsmouth Town Hall with John Edwards
South Church
292 State St., Portsmouth

6:45pm
Durham Town Hall with John Edwards
UNH, Holloway Commons, Durham

He is also in the state tomorrow.

At a meeting in Concord tonight the New Hampshire chapter of the Service Employees International Union endorsed John Edwards's presidential campaign, the most significant news in Edwards's campaign in the Granite State.

The SEIU is the largest union in New Hampshire of 9,000 members. But more important than that the news means that procedurally the 1.3 million of SEIU members in 12 other state chapters who have endorsed Edwards will be allowed to campaign in New Hampshire on his behalf.

"I was impressed that Edwards not only talks about unions when he is in front of a union audience, he supports unions when he talks to a business audience" said Department of Health and Human Services employee Ken Roos.

A tale from the trail from assistant Brian Lawson. His blog is here.

BEDFORD, N.H. -- Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards spent Sunday rolling-out his health care policy.

Speaking at a specialized assistant living center for people with memory problems, Edwards discussed his proposal for universal health care coverage and the need to change the system in Washington.

"Changing the health care system will require us to stand-up to those who don't want to see the system change," Edwards told a crowd of 75 people at Arbors of Bedford.

Discussing the healthcare system, the Democratic presidential contender said people should speak-up and "not to stand quietly bye."

"It's just not sad, it's wrong."

When asked what the difference is between his plan and those purposed by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Edwards said that his plan is mandatory while Obama's is not and the Clinton plan is "a copy".

"To be blunt about it, my plan came out in February and her plan came out in September. It's pretty close to being a copy," he said.

Edwards went on to criticize Clinton for accepting money from lobbyists representing drug companies and said "she's actually taken more money from lobbyists than any other candidate."

"I don't want a lobbyist deciding what kind of universal health care coverage we have in this country. I think we need to take their power away from them, instead of compromising and negotiation with them," Edwards added.

Edwards concluded the event by telling the crowd that New Hampshire voters are "the guardians of the type of president we have."

A new internal memo for the John Edwards campaign suggests the New Hampshire landscape should be viewed two ways:

1. The electorate has not mind up their minds.
2. They will be making up their minds based on electability.

The memo, written by Global Strategy Group and released to the Globe from the Edwards campaign suggests that the New Hampshire voters are receptive to an anti-Republican message given that they handed Republicans their worst defeat in state history in last year's mid-term elections. This anti-Republican sentiment means these voters want someone electable. And state by state Rasmussen poling shows that Edwards is the most electable candidate.

Other campaigns would argue that the Democratic base is less focused on electability because they won last fall and now want a candidate more aligned with their beliefs.

The memo also argues that New Hampshire will matter in deciding who the presidential nominee will be and that the most critical moment in the New Hampshire campaign is the week before the primary (and after the Iowa Caucus).

Of the lessons learned from the 2004 campaign "is the importance of running a community-based, as opposed to a top-down, New Hampshire campaign." That is why they will care more about community leaders over big name endorsements.

Visiting New Hampshire yesterday, John Edwards's national campaign manager David Bonior said he believed that Iowa and New Hampshire should keep their traditional first-in-the-nation roles in in the presidential primary process even though his home state of Michigan is among the states threatening both states for clout.

"I do believe there is a role for a larger state in this process whether that be Florida or wherever," Bonior said in an interview. "But this campaign is focused on the four early states of Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and South Carolina because that is where the issues matter most."

The comments are among the ever Bonior has said publicly about the primary calendar. He represented Michigan in Congress for 26 years.

Iowa and New Hampshire have been fighting to keep their 35 year tradition of going first. Michigan is now moving ahead with plans to hold a contest ahead of the tentative dates for both states.

He also said that he was "very happy" with the way the campaign is going in New Hampshire.

"This is going to be a tremendous race here in New Hampshire," he said.

After just finishing a four-day bus tour of New Hampshire with her husband, Elizabeth Edwards will return to the state Thursday, the Globe has learned.

She will attend house parties in Bow and Mont Vernon and also give donated school supplies to an elementary school in Manchester. During the bus tour Edwards supporters were urged to donate supplies to lower-income school children.

Her husband is expected to return himself in a few weeks.

John Edwards introduced a new stump speech -- and with it a renewed focus on front-runner Hillary Clinton -- today in Hanover as he kicked-off a four day bus tour through the state.

Edwards's renewed focus on "change" today comes at a time when the central debate of the Democratic race for president has been Obama's own discussion of change against Clinton's talk of experience.

Polling among New Hampshire Democratic voters recent months has shown Clinton, Obama and Edwards locked in first, second and third place with little movement.

"This line of change doesn't appear all that different from what he has been saying," said Wayne Lesperance, a political science professor at New England College in Henniker, N.H. "But he is trying to get in the mix with Obama and Clinton who really have been talking over him."

In prepared remarks Edwards was to say: "small thinking and outdated answers aren’t the only problems with a vision for the future that is rooted in nostalgia. The trouble with nostalgia is that you tend to remember what you liked and forget what you didn’t. It’s not just that the answers of the past aren’t up to the job today, it’s that the system that produced them was corrupt – and still is."

The nostalgia lines were in no doubt references to Clinton, who just two months ago campaign with her husband, the popular former president, in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Edwards will also campaign today in Keene, Peterborough, and Hooksett.

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- John Edwards's presidential campaign said today that staffers are being moved out of Nevada to other early primary states like Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

It is the latest sign that Nevada's early presidential contest is growing to be an afterthought. It is also probably not a coincidence that the decision was made less than a week after it became clear that New Hampshire and Iowa will move up the dates of their contests. This means that Nevada will likely be third instead of the second state to vote. Currently the Nevada Caucus is scheduled for Jan. 19, at least seven days after the New Hampshire Primary. South Carolina matters to the campaign because it is the only state that Edwards won in the 2004 primary.

Edwards spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield would not say how many staffers would move to New Hampshire. But she said it would be a "handful." In June the campaign had 40 staffers and it now has 10 field offices in the state.

All this week John Edwards's presidential campaign is releasing names of supporters by region ahead of his 10-county bus tour of New Hampshire later this month.

Over the past few days, some of the prominent people Edwards has picked up support from in Merrimack County and the Upper Valley who have just joined the campaign include Bennington Selectman James Trow, State Representative Claudia Chase, Peterborough selectman Joe Byk, and Concord activist Barbara Kuhlman Brown.

EPPING, N.H. -- John Edwards named eleven people to New Hampshire's "Environmentalists for Edwards" committee while campaigning in the state over the weekend.

Charing the committee are State Representatives Jay Phinizy and David Essex, who serve as Chairman and Vice Chairman respectively of the House Environment and Agriculture Committee.

Edwards was met with crowds of over 300 at stops in Nashua, Dover, Canterbury and Londonderry over the weekend. In Epping he spoke to about 200 people on a family farm.

BEDFORD, N.H. – Elizabeth Edwards said she did not feel it was inappropriate to hold a campaign event within a gated community just one week before her husband is to launch a national initiative on poverty.

On Tuesday afternoon, Edwards spoke to a house party attended by more than 100 people in Bedford, a Manchester suburb that is one of the richest communities in New Hampshire. She is expected to speak at two other house parties later in the day, in Keene and Hopkinton.

“It is really important to have people inside gated communities as well as outside gated communities engaged if we are going to solve problems as huge as poverty in this country,” Edwards said in response to a reporter's question about whether it was an appropriate setting given her husband's anti-poverty drive.

Her husband continues to be dogged over the disclosure that he got two $400 haircuts, and a recent report said one haircut cost over $1,200.

On the stump, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, himself a multimillionaire, quips: “You know, I think John Edwards was right. There are two Americas. There is the America where people pay $400 for a haircut and then there is everybody else."

The Edwards campaign has announced that next week they will launch a nation-wide tour to bring attention to the issue of poverty. The tour will begin in New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward.

John Edwards's presidential campaign said today that it will open eight new campaign offices in the state and hire an additional 11 field staffers as the campaign pays more attention to the state.

The new offices will be in Berlin, Dover, Derry, Keene, Laconia, Lebanon, Nashua and Portsmouth. They already have offices in Concord and Manchester.

John Edwards's presidential campaign will announce later today they are going to put their first television ad on the air in New Hampshire.

When start today they will be the only Edwards ads running in the entire country. Previously he has run ads in Iowa and in Washington, D.C. prior to a vote in the US Senate on Iraq war funding.

His ad, Strength of America can be viewed below.

John Edwards, the Washington-based Politico reports, is hoping New Hampshire will help him "stay alive".

The Edwards campaign had to be happy with the headline. Every since a University of New Hampshire poll showed Edwards slipping 10 points and dangerously close to being overcome by Bill Richardson, his campaign has put a renewed focus on the state.

Edwards visited a group of liberal activists two weeks ago and said New Hampshire would see more of him. His wife quickly returned last Friday to do some community service in Milford. His campaign says they are going to bring more staff to the state.

All of this is an attempt to change the storyline about Edwards among Democrats that Edwards either hates the state or certainly doesn't respect it's process of electing a president. (Don't forget in 2004 Edwards had his worst performance, fourth place, in the state.)

As one person who worked for Edwards this year said on the condition it do not use their name, this storyline "Isn't exactly right, but not necessarily wrong either".

It is true that Edwards has visited New Hampshire more times since the 2004 election than any Democratic candidate, but most of those trips were in 2005 and 2006.

He rarely courts local legislative leaders in the state as they are accustomed, but he does have one of the most prestigious steering committees of these leaders.

But a better example of the "Edwards not getting N.H." storyline could be found in the Politico story.

Ironically, Edwards advisers decided to show their commitment to New Hampshire by talking to a Washington publication. Second, their rationale for winning New Hampshire is to "differentiate himself by stressing a message of economic fairness that could appeal to the lower-income and union voters who are essential to his success."

New Hampshire has the lowest poverty rate in the nation and union membership also one of the lowest in the country at 10.1 percent, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

NASHUA, N.H. -- The man who found his way into several national news accounts for his question to Hillary Clinton at her first town hall meeting in New Hampshire whether she -- "right here, right now" -- would say her 2002 Iraq vote was a mistake, has signed up with John Edwards.

Roger Tilton of Nashua attended a town hall meeting for Edwards at an elementary school Friday.

As the event began Tilton, for the first time, signed up as a supporter of Edwards on a clipboard in the hallway.

Tilton said even though he had two daughters and would like to support Clinton, he meant what he said in his question in January, that he could not even hear what else she had to say until she admitted her vote was a mistake.

Tilton said he thought Edwards was "authentic" because he has said his vote was a mistake.

Former North Carolina senator John Edwards announced that three New Hampshire state senators, along with the biggest Democratic activist in the state's North Country, would head up his presidential campaign in the state.

State Senators Peter Burling, Joe Foster and David Gottesman have all supported Edwards for years, but the campaign announced in a conference call with reporters this afternoon that they would take on official campaign roles. Coos County Democratic Chairman Paul Robitaille is also on this committee.

Altogether, there are 42 members of his New Hampshire leadership team.

LONDONDERRY, N.H. – Elizabeth Edwards was campaigning in New Hampshire today. You knew it when camera flashes went off. You saw it when crowds gathered around to hug her.

Her husband John, the actual Democratic presidential candidate, was there with their three kids on a day of campaigning. (Their son Jack appropriately wore a Red Sox hat in conjunction with baseball’s opening day.)

But on her first trip to New Hampshire since announcing to the world that she had an “incurable, but treatable” form of cancer, Elizabeth Edwards was greeted like a star.

After a Town Hall-style event with mainly students at Concord High School, Elizabeth Edwards had as many people gathered around her as John did. She signed autographs, discussed cancer often, and received personal gifts such as a new necklace from friends she had met earlier on the trail.

Elizabeth Edwards said that for the most part she has received encouraging comments since disclosing the return of her cancer, but took aim at commentators who've suggested that the couple's decision to continue campaigning was motivated by ambition more than concern for her health or their children's wellbeing.

She said that some people who “were against John’s campaign have unfortunately used our decision to continue our campaign as a chance to score political points.”

She went on to tell reporters the decision to continue her husband’s presidential campaign was entirely hers.

“He asked me first what we should do and I knew it was on purpose that he let me speak first. He wanted to know what I wanted and not have to second guess if I was deferring to his wants,” she said.

Despite her cancer battle, Elizabeth Edwards remains focused on the campaign trail. Yesterday, she corrected her husband when he misspoke about how many years it would take to accomplish a goal. And at an event at Stonyfield Yogurt in Londonderry, she stood up from the front row and grabbed the microphone. She wanted to point out that, like the questioner, her father was having a hard time navigating his veteran’s benefits.

Among those who wanted to talk with her was John Cunningham, a Concord lawyer.

“I think she is truly an inspiration,” said Cunningham, a Democrat who is not supporting any particular candidate.

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards will return to New Hampshire next week with his wife for the first time since announcing her cancer has returned.

John, his wife Elizabeth, and their two young children will appear at a town hall meeting Monday night at the University of New Hampshire in Durham. He will be in the state at the same time that Barack Obama will be holding an event of his own.

Details about the Edwards' visit to UNH are expected to be released by his campaign later this week.

In a speech delivered in New Hampshire today, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards pledged that his campaign would be "carbon neutral,'' meaning it would buy carbon credits for the amount of energy it uses in campaign offices and travel.

In a conference call with reporters, Edwards said the move wouldn’t be cheap or easy to calculate, but he felt it sent a strong message.

Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards will deliver what his campaign is calling a "major policy address" on poverty Thursday.

Oddly, Edwards only booked the room today, just two days ahead of this speech.

He will deliver it at St. Anselm College in Goffstown.

John Edwards'presidential campaign announced a New Hampshire campaign manager today. Beth Leonard, who has no campaign experience in the Granite State,recently ran Boston Mayor Tom Menino's re-election campaign.

Leonard will have the title New Hampshire State Director. In addition to running Menino's 2005 re-election campaign, she was also John Kerry's field director in Ohio in 2004. Last year she was the Get Out The Vote director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

After working on Menino's campaign she worked for the city. Last fall her six figure salary for that job became an issue.

On Monday, former North Carolina Senator John Edwards became the latest presidential candidate to say he will not accept matching campaign funds from the government, a move that allows him to raise and spend unlimited money on his own.

Last month, Senator Hillary Clinton made the unprecedented move of not accepting public funding for either the primary or the general election because she believes she has the ability to raise more money than she would receive from the government. In 2004, John Kerry and Howard Dean opted out of the public funding system in the Democratic presidential primary. But Kerry and his Republican rival George W. Bush received government funding during the general election.

In that same year Edwards did receive matching funds in the primary.

The only other 2008 candidate to weigh in on government funding so far is former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who said he will not accept public funds for the primary and will make a decision on the general election when, and if, he becomes the Republican presidential nominee.

Former US Senator John Edwards became the first presidential candidate to release a comprehensive national health care plan on Monday. He described his program as providing “transformational” change.

His plan, with the goal of universal health care insurance coverage, was drastically different from a more modest approach he offered as a presidential candidate four years ago.

Why the change? Is it the result of changes in health care, the political environment, or his own thinking?

“I would say it is some combination of all three,” Edwards said in an interview with the Globe. “I think America has gotten to the place where small increments are not enough.”

His plan is similar to the new health care law in Massachusetts, offering a range of programs to make sure every resident is insured. But his proposal places a heavier emphasis on employers to provide health insurance.

“I think that employers have a moral responsibility [to provide health insurance],” Edwards said.

To help employers pay for health insurance, he would create regional non-profit “health markets” that pool different public and private plans, allowing for cheaper plans.

His plan would take three years to implement and would require tax increases on those earning more than $200,000 a year.

Asked if tax increases doom his plan, he said, "The American people are smarter than political consultants say they are. They understand you can’t get anything for free.”

HANOVER, N.H. – Former Senator John Edwards said that if he was elected president he would spend the first 100 days visiting foreign countries in an attempt to improve the way those countries feel about the United States.

Speaking to 500 people at Dartmouth College, Edwards said the nation's image has been hurt during George W. Bush’s presidency.

“I don’t mean to do this just so we can feel good,” said Edwards. “We need to do this because the fact is that when America doesn’t lead, there is no leader in the world. No one else can do it.”

He then argued for an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq and intervention in the Darfur region of Sudan, where the US has declared that genocide is taking a place.

This was Edwards second trip to the state in the month since he announced he was running for president. Those trips – first to Portsmout, and Wednesday to Hanover – were to two of the most liberal pockets of the state.

The Dartmouth crowd was reserved, absent the applause that might be expected in a town hall-style setting.

Among those in the crowd were Dartmouth freshman Tyler Quinn, a Democrat from the Seattle area. Quinn said he plans to get involved in next year’s presidential primary, but after hearing Edwards he wants to also hear from Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

“He had some good things to say,” said Quinn. “At this point I am still waiting for the big names.”

Former Senator John Edwards continues to hire staff for his New Hampshire campaign as he prepares another trip to the Granite State next week.

Edwards has named longtime aide James Katz to be his New Hampshire political director. Ben Smith of the Politico first reported the news and Katz has confirmed it to the Globe.

Katz, who worked for Edwards in New Hampshire during the 2004 campaign, is taking a leave from the Harvard Law School to work on the 2008 campaign.

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. – So many people turned out to see former North Carolina Senator John Edwards kickoff his presidential race in New Hampshire today that the Portsmouth fire marshal had to turn some 200 away.

About 1,000 people showed up to see Edwards at the Little Harbor Elementary School in Portsmouth. Some 200 were told there wasn’t enough room in the school’s gymnasium, so Edwards addressed a potion of them outside in an impromptu event in the brisk December wind.

Asked afterward how he would be able to compete with well-known names such as Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Edwards replied, "Did you see these crowds?”

Senator John Edwards will indeed announce a second presidential bid in New Orleans, a spokeswoman confirmed to the Associated Press Wednesday afternoon.

Edwards had written in an e-mail to supporters over the weekend that he was “prepared to take the next step”, but tomorrow he will formally launch his campaign.

In recent days he has also launched a new website. You can see it here.

After his announcement in New Orleans he will attend events in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

Former Senator John Edwards is preparing a trip to New Hampshire late next week, the Globe has learned. The trip would come around the same time he is expected to formally announce his bid for president.

Edwards's advance staff has been on the ground in New Hampshire for at least two weeks. He is expected to be in the state on Friday, Dec. 29.

The New York Times reports today that Edwards will make his campaign announcement in New Orleans.

While cable television talks breathlessly about Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, on the ground it is former Senator John Edwards who has the clear organizational advantage over all Democrats.

Further evidence of this is found in a new poll of likely Iowa caucus-goers. The poll, sponsored by Environmental Defense, shows Edwards with a commanding lead of 36 percent. Clinton and Obama trail him with 16 percent and 13 percent, respectively. Obviously, it was another bad poll for Tom Vilsack, who doesn’t appear to have a lot of support in his home state.

Edwards also got some mixed news out of New Hampshire this week. On the bad side, state Senator Lou D’Allesandro wants it known that he is not all the way with Edwards like he used to be. On the good side, another state Senator and big Edwards supporter, David Gottesman, is making calls about a run for the US Senate against John E. Sununu. Having a key supporter so high profile can only help.

John Edwards and Newt Gingrich will hold events simultaneously tonight in Manchester as they explore presidential runs.

Edwards will be signing copies of his new book at the Barnes and Noble on South Willow Street. Gingrich will address a Union-Leader sponsored First Amendment dinner four interstate exits away in downtown Manchester. Both events start at 7pm.

The Union Leader, by the way, editorializes that Edwards, an avowed Wal-Mart critic, should be signing his books at Wal-Mart instead of Barnes and Noble since they pay their employees more than the bookseller.

Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of potential presidential candidate John Edwards, was returning to New Hampshire Monday evening to sign copies of her book, “Saving Graces”.

She will be in River Run Bookstore in Portsmouth before heading to a Breast Cancer Screening event at Elloit Hospital in Manchester Tuesday afternoon.

This is the second time Mrs. Edwards has been in New Hampshire promoting her book since it came out this fall.

On Nov. 27, John Edwards will be in Manchester to promote his own book titled “HOME: The Blueprints of Our Lives”.