Miss your flight? There's always skype! Elizabeth Edwards never quite made it to New York, but from the comfy confines of her living room in North Carolina she parried questions from citizen journalists, accountability activists and pollitical operatives. She says - wait for it - online journalism has been good. Some issues, she says, are just "too big" for the mainstream media: Whether Iraq or healthcare, the "mainstream media will shortchange it because the issue is too big for the package."

Will online citizen efforts compensate for the failures of mainstream media? "Yes and no", Edwards says. "If voters get their information from CNN.com, that's not taking full advantage of the Internet." Though access is improving, she says that for a lot of people "older than 30" it seems like the Grand Canyon to them and they don't know how to get across it. "I haven't made the jump to immediacy of action. I don't carry a laptop with me everywhere," she says.

And sometimes technology gets the better of us...redialling Skype. Come in Elizabeth. There, that's better. So where were we?

How do Presidential candidates view the Internet? "Truth is, they see it as a spigot for cash," Edwards admits. She says candidates further down the feeding chain see more potential uses online: Ron Paul developed a recognizable base through the Internet, but failed to use the money raised to further outreach gains made online. "Swiftboat was clever in '04 to use a small amount on television then use the Internet to spread it virally, but we don't have true believers yet in terms of the Internet."

Part of the issue may be that "digital divide" - the fact that many Americans still do not have access to broadband. In the primaries, early states like Iowa and South Carolina weren't so connected with their older, rural demographics. 

But back to that "spigot" thing: How does Elizabeth Edwards feel about Obama's opt out of federal financing? "Um, you know, I wans't part of that conversation, but having proven himself as a grassroots candidate, was it important to prove himself all over again? Or more important to take the opportunity to really turn some solid red states? He needs to show he is truly a candidate of change, and get away from system dominated by big money, so I don't know. Will he pay a long term price for it? No, I don't think voters care. They may care if he said one thing once, and another thing another time. john McCain is in no position to call anyone a hypocrite.

"They say 'he who dies with the most toys wins': There's no point collecting political capital unless you are willing to spend it. I hope our next President spends political capital," says Edwards.