At DeNunzio's Italian restaurant in Jeannette, the Democrats' potential "second lady," Elizabeth Edwards, is midway through another long day of solo campaigning. She's running behind schedule; her campaign aides have already given her the 'cut' sign.

Martha Rial, Post-Gazette Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards, serves cantaloupe to victims of Friday's flooding during a visit to the Millvale Community Center yesterday. Click photo for larger image.

But she protests and calls on a woman with a query the campaign of the Democratic presidential challenger, Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry, has struggled for months to answer with clarity: Why did Kerry vote for the war on Iraq and then vote against its funding?

"Let me tell you what happened," Elizabeth Edwards answers simply. The vote of Kerry and her husband, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, to authorize the use of force in Iraq was like hammer, she explains, to pressure then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein -- 'like pulling out a switch, if you're a mom' -- a threat of force they'd hoped that the United States would never have to use. And at the time, Edwards and Kerry insisted that if there were an invasion by U.S. forces, there must be a plan for peace in the aftermath.

But after the Iraq invasion, there was no plan from the president, Edwards insisted. Security in Iraq was deteriorating, and something had to be done to ensure soldiers' safety. So when Bush sought $87 billion more for the war effort, Edwards and Kerry refused to give him "a blank check."

She snatches an index card off a nearby table and holds it up to signify Kerry's and Edwards' vote. "It was like this: 'Give me a plan, and I'll give you the vote,'" she says, waving the card behind her head.

But the president "would not do it, he would not give them a plan," Edwards says. "... They could not in good conscience [vote for the measure without that plan]."

The explanation is unscripted, a bit unpolished, but somehow more effective than even some of the candidate's own explanations. When she finishes, her questioner nods along with others in the room.

As Edwards heads out the door to meet with flood victims in Millvale, her listeners clamor around her with well-wishes, and it appears that she has indeed won over at least a few voters.

During her husband's primary campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, Edwards was a constant presence at his side as his chief advisor -- an equal partner in deciding his campaign's direction. But now, she holds a very different role, as the wife of the potential vice president. With 40 days before Election Day, Edwards says she has moved comfortably into the role of messenger for the Kerry-Edwards team, offering her folksy explanations of issues with her trademark blend of sass and humor.

The former lawyer, who quit her practice to raise her two small children, now spends five to six days a week on the road talking to small groups like the one in Jeannette, pushing hard for votes by explaining complex issues such as the differences between the health plans proposed by Kerry and President Bush.

Like first lady Laura Bush, Edwards is warmly received -- particularly by women, who say she is a careful listener and someone to whom they can relate.

"Her style is very approachable; she knows the issues and can expound on them for the average person," Janie Kennedy of Jeannette said after watching Edwards yesterday. "If there is anyone in this room that didn't get her message, they were asleep."

Edwards says one of her most effective roles in coming weeks may be to try and drive home the Kerry-Edwards message on national security issues, from the perspective of a wife and mother.

"Maybe it's being the daughter of military people, maybe it's being the mom of four kids, maybe it's trying to balance work and family. ... Whatever it is that's connecting with people, I think that is useful," she says. "When I think about the issues, ... my very first way of thinking about [them] ... is the same way mothers everywhere think.

"That, I think, makes it easier for people to say, 'I'm going to listen.'"