Elizabeth Edwards has been out of the limelight lately, but she's fine, says Jonathan Prince, deputy campaign manager of John Edwards' presidential run.

During a campaign conference call Monday, a reporter noted that Elizabeth Edwards, who has cancer, hasn't been seen on the campaign trail since New Hampshire and wondered why.

First, Prince pointed out that New Hampshire's primary was just three weeks ago.

"There's a lot of these contests; obviously she can't do everything," Prince said.

"She's doing fantastic," he said. "There's been absolutely no change to her prognosis, her diagnosis. She's asymptomatic. She's doing great."

Edwards sets his strategy

John Edwards will focus his campaign dollars, staff and personal visits on 10 of the 22 states in next week's Super Tuesday primary.

A few other states will see resources in key congressional districts, but overall, Edwards' campaign strategists want to continue the delegate-gathering journey that they see as their best hope for winning the Democratic presidential nomination.

"If we can compete [in the 10 focus states] and be viable in the remaining 12 states, then we're going to have a very good day on Feb. 5," said David Bonior, Edwards' campaign manager.

Edwards' aides refused to outline their exact strategy. But the campaign has advertising buys scheduled in 10 states, and Edwards has visits scheduled through Wednesday in Tennessee, Missouri, Oklahoma, Minnesota, North Dakota, Alabama and Georgia.

In each state, Edwards must win at least 15 percent of the vote to earn delegates.

"Our polling data show us that in many of these states we're running in the high teens, low 20s, and we have a shot to pick up a lot of delegates," Bonior said.

Edwards has 26 delegates to Obama's 53 and Clinton's 48.

A candidate needs 2,025 - half the available delegates plus one - to win the nomination. Those in Edwards' camp said they can envision a situation in which no candidate arrives at the convention with a majority - making Edwards a player.

Edwards also has raised more than $3.2 million online in January and is "moving toward $4 million," said senior campaign strategist Joe Trippi. That amounts to most of his total monthly fundraising, Trippi said, and most of it will be eligible for matching public dollars.

"We've really outpaced where we thought we'd be," he said.

Hagan finds fruit in Florida

State Sen. Kay Hagan is looking for some help from the Sunshine State.

The Greensboro Democrat is turning to her home state of Florida to raise money for her effort to take the seat held by U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole.

According to an item in the Lakeland (Fla.) Ledger, her family is holding a fundraiser there Wednesday evening with a minimum $150 contribution to get in the door. Hagan grew up in Lakeland, moved to North Carolina to go to college and stayed. She is in her fifth term in the state Senate.

Among the list of hosts for the event is U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat.

Dole, a Republican from Salisbury, is seeking her second six-year term.

News exec back to school

UNC-Chapel Hill's School of Journalism and Mass Communication announced Monday that it has hired a former executive at The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times to help the school focus on the digital media revolution.

Penelope Muse Abernathy, a Laurinburg native and former reporter, editor and media executive, has been named to the Knight Chair in Journalism and Digital Media Economics. Abernathy starts the job July 1.

Abernathy is vice president and executive director of industry programs at the Paley Center for Media in New York.

The Internet revolution has weakened traditional media businesses in recent years, a trend that scholar Phil Meyer, UNC-CH's who now holds the Knight Chair, detailed in his 2004 book "The Vanishing Newspaper." Meyer will retire this year.

Abernathy began new money-making enterprises at some of the nation's most prominent news organizations, including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

Before her career on the business side of the industry, she worked as a reporter or editor at various newspapers, including The Charlotte Observer, The Greensboro News & Record, The Dallas Times-Herald, The Wichita Eagle-Beacon, The Fayetteville Times and The Laurinburg Exchange.

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