Johnny's Still Goin'

As the Charlotte Observer reports today, "for a man not officially running for anything, Democrat John Edwards has been keeping a campaign-like schedule." What's he been up to?

- "Last week he met with the British prime minister, spoke at the London School of Economics and lobbied members of the Albuquerque, N.M., city council to pass a higher minimum wage."

- He's recently been named co-chair of a Council on Foreign Relations task force on Russia (information on that here, at the new TPMCafe, where Edwards has been guest-blogging all week. He's even been mixing it up in the comments section).

- Today he will deliver a speech called "Moving Beyond Two Americas" at a conference sponsored by the Campaign for America's Future.

- He's in charge of the University of North Carolina's Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity as well as his PAC, the One America Committee.

- Oh, and there's a new book in the works.

- And he's giving the keynote address at the Jackson Day Dinner in Nashville this week.

The Observer notes that Edwards has "visited at least 15 states since January. Saturday he speaks to Tennessee Democrats in Nashville. He'll visit at least eight more states in the coming months."

In The Hill, Alexander Bolton covers a gathering of Edwards' 2004 supporters in Washington last month, remarking that they "remain more enthusiastically loyal than the erstwhile allies of his former running mate ... one Democratic fundraiser said." However, Bolton adds, "Democratic insiders say the lack of a bully pulpit is Edwards’s biggest weakness, and several relegate him to second-tier status for that reason."

Perhaps Edwards is going to take the "itinerant preacher" route toward the 2008 nomination. Who needs a bully pulpit when there are so many stumps just waiting to be talked from?