Waiting on the "Double E" Factor

In an obscure reference to the always late Warren Zevon and popularized by the right on time Linda Rondstadt

A Shoo-In For 'Regular Person'
On the Campaign Trail, Elizabeth Edwards Attracts Voters

By Sridhar Pappu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 5, 2007; C01

DURHAM, N.H. Where are they? That was the question circulating among the 1,200 people in the gym at Concord High School on a cold, drizzly, sunless day this week as they waited for John and Elizabeth Edwards and their three children. After a National Merit finalist extolled the Edwards clan and loudspeakers blared the Foo Fighters for a rockin' intro, the crowd turned its attention to a set of doors, begging, pleading, for an entrance.

Instead, for nearly three minutes they got nothing. The music stopped. Chants of "Johnny! Johnny! Johnny!" didn't work. Synchronized clapping didn't, either.

When they finally emerged, it was Elizabeth leading the way. Once merely the well-liked wife of a presidential candidate touched by tragedy (the death of their son in an automobile accident, an episode of breast cancer), she has become a conduit through which Americans are debating the role of a mother and wife and the price of political service. More