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Tavis: As we head into the final weekend of the campaign, the candidates and their wives are stopping in states still considered up for grabs. Earlier I caught up with Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Senator John Edwards, following a campaign stop in one of those states: Wisconsin. Mrs. Edwards, nice to have you on the program. Thanks for taking the time.

Elizabeth Edwards: It's great to be with you, Tavis.

Tavis: So are we having fun yet?

Edwards: I'm having a good time. It'll be nice when I get a rest at the end of this, I have to say, but right now I'm having a good time.

Tavis: Let me ask you to give me a brief description of what your life has been like in terms of the campaigning since your husband was picked as the running mate. How--what's your schedule like every week?

Edwards: Oh, well, in these last weeks, in about the last 6 weeks of the campaign, it's pretty much been the same thing every day. You get up in the morning in a new town. You--I've been having mostly town halls, conversations with people about letting them ask whatever question they want, and then packing up the show and going and doing it again, doing it 2 or 3 times a day in 2 or 3 cities, sometimes as many as 4 states in a day. So we're dancing as fast as we can.

Tavis: And you see your kids when?

Edwards: Well, I'm traveling on pretty small accommodations. My husband has better accommodations. They've been traveling with him, and I've been trying to see them on the weekends or get back to Washington for a night sometimes to make certain I'm there for them in between. But you know, they're making a sacrifice, I do know that, but I think it's in their own best interest. I'm really campaigning for them in addition to campaigning without them.

Tavis: We all know your story and the amount of time that you spend with your kids at home, so what's it been like for you as a mother to have that--what do they call it? Separation anxiety?

Edwards: Well, I've had it a little bit, but I grew up in a Navy family where I'm used to somebody going--my dad going away, doing something he needed to do for the country, and we'd stay at home waiting for him. And I'm thinking about those families a lot these days who have people who are on deployment in Iraq or Afghanistan and the sacrifices they're making. My family's making a pretty itsy-bitsy sacrifice, all things considered.

Tavis: Let me ask you how you like this town hall format. There are any number of ways to engage voters. What do you like or dislike about operating within that town hall forum?

Edwards: Boy, it's miles better for me. I mean, instead of giving a speech, which, you know, I don't have a stump speech at all. I don't have something I've memorized that I'm gonna say every time, don't have anything I have to read, so this way it's a lot better. I get to respond to the questions people have.

Also, then, instead of just guessing what they're interested in, I know what they're interested in. They just told me, and we can talk about the questions they have. I don't do much of sound bites. I give often a very long--in fact the staff tells me overly long answers to things in order to try to be complete. Because, you know, you see the TV commercials, and even in the debates, which were great, I think, for letting people know where the candidates stood, still they were confined to 90 seconds or 2 minutes for an answer, and often these issues are more complex than that.

Tavis: How important are women? How significant are women voters going to be in this election? We note that Mr. Kerry is doing everything he can to appeal to women voters. We've seen all kinds of stories about that. How important are women, you think, going to be in this election, and what are you hearing--what are you saying, rather, that you get the sense is connecting with the women that you're talking to?

Edwards: Well, women are pretty important. I mean, so many didn't participate last time. I think the number was something like 22 million unmarried women didn't participate. 1 in 3 women in Ohio didn't participate last time. Might've made a real difference if they had, so we want to make certain that they're--that women are engaged, that they understand what's--what's at stake this time, and so in order to do that, you have to talk about the difference between this president and John Kerry, and the differences are really remarkable.

I have to say that Laura Bush gives a speech, 'W is for women.' I'm sure you've seen that little placard in front of her when she's giving speeches. I was curious what it was because I didn't know of any policies that the president has that have really been helpful to women, and as I--when I read it I found out there weren't any particular programs helpful to women in the entire speech.

So I've been trying to address the things that John Kerry would do differently. John Kerry would, in fact, enforce the equal pay initiative to make certain that women get the same pay as men. This president's abolished it. They've even taken down the statistics from the Department of Labor web site. Women earn 76 cents on the dollar compared to men. If you're a woman of color, 54 cents on a dollar, but you don't get to pay 54% of your rent or 54% of your electricity. You gotta pay the whole thing.

So we need a government that's working to make certain everybody gets a dollar for a dollar's work. He's set up a commission to see whether we need Title 9 at all to make certain that our sons and our daughters have an equal opportunity to go to college using their athletic skills. The president--you saw that ad on television, didn't you? During the Olympics, it was a great commercial, really a feel-good commercial of the women butterfly swimmers, and the president said, you know, 70 democracies before, or 40 democracies before, and now 123, whatever the numbers were, and we saw the victorious women butterflyers. Our women did great in this Olympics, and they did a fantastic job in these last Olympics because they were the first generation of women to go through college with title 9 funding, and we need to make certain it's there. It's a matter of fairness, and look at the great benefits that we have. The president's television commercial did not exactly reflect his own commitment to that title 9 funding.

We see it in lots of other ways, too. This president's not made certain that we have the kind of funding for women's small businesses that we need. He's been cutting micro-loan programs and other kinds of money under--you don't care what section numbers they are, but under small business money that women small business owners, who are the biggest growing segment of our small business population, really rely on to start those businesses, to keep them going, and he's been cutting that same money.

The list goes on and on of ways he's short-changed, so what I try to do is make certain women recognize this. Recognize that we have a president right now who's not addressing the issues that are important to them, and talk about what John Kerry would do, which is an entirely different set, different agenda. He's supportive of things that are important to women, and will continue to support them.

Tavis: I didn't want to cut you off there, but to not have a stump speech, that was pretty good. That was pretty good to not have a stump speech. Ha ha!

Edwards: And I have a lot more going on in my head that I could be telling you, too.

Tavis: Well, you know what? You do have a stump speech whether you know it or not. Speaking of women, let me throw a few names at you, and I, by design and by deliberate intention, do not want to color this. I just want to throw a few names of women at you and let you respond. Laura Bush. Laura Bush.

Edwards: OK. Gentle. Is that what you want me to say? Something like single word? I think she seems like a gentle, sweet woman.

Tavis: Mm-hmm. Mary Cheney.

Edwards: I think she's proud. She has taken steps that I think are--are--may have been hard to take to be representative of her communities and try to do outreach in those communities, and I had the opportunity just to shake her hand as she walked by, but I think I would say proud.

Tavis: Her mother, whose job you might take, Lynne Cheney.

Edwards: Um, she's very bright. I think I'll leave it at that.

Tavis: All right. Ha ha ha! How about Teresa Heinz Kerry?

Edwards: She's warm and generous. When John Kerry's elected, she will take the place of being the single most generous first lady we've ever had. Wide range of things that she's done, money that she's made certain got into the places that need to be to change the lives of people across this country and, frankly, across the world, dealing with prescription drugs in Rhode Island and Ohio, and dealing with the problems in western Pennsylvania of women who have--who are trying to make it and struggling. Dealing with environmental issues across our planet. She's engaging and warm and committed to making our world better.

Tavis: How about Elizabeth Edwards?

Edwards: Um, mostly I think of myself as a mom. I've had children in 4 decades: seventies, eighties, nineties and zeroes, and I guess I'll be--I'm gonna put that last one off to college when I'm well into my sixties, so my whole--nearly my entire life is going to be defined by the fact that I'm a mom.

Tavis: What does it mean? You say that very proudly, and I suspect you should. What does it mean for you? What does it mean for you, and what does it give you in terms of context to have been a mother in 4 different decades?

Edwards: Well, I think one of the things that's really helpful is when I'm out here having these conversations with people, it means that I understand what's happening in their lives. It wasn't that long ago I was, you know, I was going to work and trying to--making school lunches and then going off to work, and then trying to figure out if I could take my lunch at the same time as the children's dental appointment, and then figuring out how I was gonna get them to soccer practice and whether I'd get somebody else to bring them back if I wanted to try to start dinner. Trying to do all the things that working moms do. And the fact that I have that context in my own life makes it a lot easier to talk to people about what's happening in their lives. I think it's probably really helpful.

Tavis: I've got about a minute and 30 seconds to go here. I can't imagine, Mrs. Edwards, I can't imagine there's anything about your husband now that we don't know. We may know too much about your husband. Is there anything about John Edwards that you think the American people need to know that we don't know about your husband as yet?

Edwards: I do think that most everything--most every corner has been explored, which I think is not even that bad a thing. We want to know who our leaders are. We want to know the choices they've made their entire adult life so we know what kind of men, and hopefully one day, women, that they are. And so I think that the interest in them is not irrational. I think that sometimes--you have a nice smile; my husband has a nice smile. Sometimes people think, and maybe this happened to you, think you must be a pushover because you seem so easy andnice when it doesn't mean that you don't have, you know, a rock-hard core that will not bend.

He's been an enormous fighter his whole life for causes that he thinks are important, and it doesn't matter how strong the fellow is on the other side, he's taken it to them. I think maybe the vice-presidential debates let people know that he wasn't--that he could stand up to just about anybody because he went toe-to-toe with the vice president, who's, you know, he's no patsy himself. And he did that, and maybe they're already disabused of the notion that he's too nice to be vice president, to do the job. It's clear he's a fighter.

Tavis: Well, I can tell you this as we close this conversation. To say that your husband John Edwards has a 'nice smile' is perhaps the political understatement of the year. He may very well be the most handsome vice president we've ever had should he be successful on November 2. I'm sure you'll agree with that, won't you?

Edwards: Well, you know, I think the beauty is all inside, so you're not even seeing half of it if you're just looking at the outside.

Tavis: I'm glad to have you on. All the best to you.

Edwards: It's really great to be with you, Tavis.

Tavis: Take care. Up next a conversation with Dr. Kiron Skinner, author of a new book on President Ronald Reagan. Stay with us.