John Edwards Goes 'Home'

It's hard not to be dazzled by John Edwards' 100-acre property on the outskirts of Chapel Hill, N.C., and the spanking new home that he has just built for his family. It's a far cry from the way that he grew up and Edwards sometimes find it hard to believe.

His rags-to-riches story was one Edwards told many times during his run as the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee in 2004.

"I come from a working family. My father worked in the mills all his life," he told Sunday Morning correspondent Rita Braver. "I was the first in my family to go to college."

In fact, it was visiting his grandparents' old house in a mill village in South Carolina that gave him the idea for this book, called "Home." In the book, Edwards has different people talk about their homes and what they mean to them.

"What I remembered about it, what it means to me today and how it's affected me," Edwards said. "Basically, to have a group of people, some well-known, which readers would find naturally interesting, and some less well-known and to see what they had to say."

Among the famous people in the book are director Steven Spielberg, former Senator Bob Dole and writer Isabelle Allende. Edwards found most of the not-so-famous contributors by putting out the word through friends and acquaintances, and ended up with stories from a health care worker, a retired teacher, a full-time mom and more.

"It was just really startling how similar it all was," Edwards said. "I mean, people remembered the same things — being in the kitchen and the cooking, and the smell of food and all that.

Many people would have expected Edwards to write a political book, but after his wife Elizabeth wrote a book about her experience on the campaign trail, he said he figured "that was about as much as anyone could stomach of that."

Elizabeth Edwards's recent book, "Saving Graces," tells the story of the couple's almost-30-year marriage. In the book she wrote that the couple celebrates their wedding anniversary at Wendy's every year.

"We had a one-night honeymoon," she said. "We celebrate our anniversary at Wendy's. Yeah, nothing but good times here."

The Edwardses revel in family life with their two young children, Jack and Emma Claire and their daughter Cate who is now in law school. But thoughts of their son Wade are always with them, too; he died in a car crash in 1996, when he was 16.

"Wade is part of my life, always will be as long as I'm alive," Edwards said. "Is he more a part of my life than my other children? I honestly don't know the answer to that. I think I would describe it more as different."

And it is another family matter that helps determine whether John Edwards runs for president in 2008: his wife's health. She was diagnosed with breast cancer at the end of the 2004 campaign but is now cancer-free.

"Well, I can absolutely guarantee he's got my vote, if he decides to run," Elizabeth Edwards said.

"It's safe to say I might very well [run for president], it wouldn't be safe to say for sure, but there's certainly a good chance," John Edwards said.

One thing that apparently won't go into his decision is the opinion of his former running mate, Sen. John Kerry. Associates of both men say their friendship has cooled.

"It's been several months since the last time I talked to him," Edwards said.

He said that Kerry's decision to run for president again in 2008 will have no impact on what he does.

Edwards has surely been behaving like a candidate, beefing up his foreign policy credentials with trips to Uganda and other countries. He has founded a center for the study of poverty, and in this country has campaigned for traditional Democratic goals, like raising the minimum wage…

"I think of myself as somebody who's gonna say exactly what I believe and whatever, whatever the consequences of that are unimportant," Edwards said.

"I was wrong, I thought there were weapons of mass destruction," he said. "There weren't. That was the primary basis for going into Iraq. Now I didn't run the war; George Bush and Dick Cheney and Don Rusmsfeld ran the war. They've made an incredible mess."

Edwards thinks he has the right ideas to end the Iraq conflict, though his wall of memories shows a relatively short time in public life after years spent building a law practice. He served only one term in the Senate before he ran for president in 2004. He says he is ready for the inevitable comments about the wealth he accrued in private life as a trial lawyer.

"If you're in public life people will be critical of you because of the way you walk, because of what you eat, because of the way you talk, like this southern accent I've got," he said. "You know, you can't worry about stuff like that."