Edwards, Obama harvest popularity on book tours

RALEIGH, N.C. — When introducing former vice presidential candidate John Edwards at a book signing this week, a family friend mentioned a bumper sticker she'd seen around town: "Edwards- Obama."

The giddy audience roared with approval.

Both Edwards and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama insist they have yet to decide whether they are running for president, but both are drawing big crowds as they follow the modern script of a White House candidate and head out on nationwide book tours. The self-promoting promenades give both an excuse to tour early 2008 primary states — without having to publicly commit to a campaign.

"Book tours have become a basic staple of the presidential process," said Chris Lehane, a Democratic strategist who has worked on several presidential campaigns. "At some level, the success of these books is a gauge and a measuring stick with how popular these candidates are with the public, as if it were a primary."

Edwards, the former North Carolina senator who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination in 2004 before landing a spot on Sen. John Kerry's ticket, has worked for the past two years to lay the groundwork for a second presidential bid. This month, he's on an 17-city tour promoting a coffee-table collection of mini memoirs on childhood homes titled "Home: The Blueprints of Our Lives."

Obama, meanwhile, released "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream" in October. In Chicago, readers waited up to three hours in line at a book signing. After saying since his 2004 election he would serve a full six-year term in Congress, Obama acknowledged less than a week after the book came out he was considering a run for president.

Nancy Olson, a Raleigh bookstore owner who hosted Edwards at a recent signing that drew several hundred people, called the prospective tandem of Edwards and Obama "a dream ticket" that would launch Democrats back into the White House in 2008.

"It's the perfect idea," Olson said. "Obama has everything that John has (except) the experience. And he will gather that experience."

An audience member asked Edwards whether the freshman senator was his greatest literary rival.

"I think my biggest literary rival introduced me tonight," Edwards said, referring to his wife Elizabeth, who just completed a book tour promoting her own memoir — "Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength from Friends and Strangers" — that chronicles her battle with breast cancer.