NEW YORK – John Edwards made a surprise appearance at a politics and technology conference here Monday, when he crashed his wife's video chat with an audience of hundreds of policy wonks and internet political operatives.

Elizabeth Edwards was being interviewed over Skype from the couple's home in North Carolina when the former Democratic presidential candidate could be seen walking in with his children, apparently surprised to find wife perched on the edge of her couch answering questions about the role of the internet in the 2008 presidential campaign. She was being interviewed by New York City entrepreneur Andrew Rasiej, founder of the Personal Democracy Forum.

He gamely sat in front of the webcam himself. Asked if he thinks the internet is "changing the course of history," he replied that it's making an enormous difference, and that it had fundamentally changed the shape of the presidential race and the dynamics of senator Barack Obama's campaign (Edwards has endorsed Obama.)

"It is the only reason that Barack Obama is not taking public financing," he said , looking refreshed and relaxed despite his impromptu interview, "'cause he has a fund-raising base that's more grassroots, more smaller donors."

Edwards walked in after his wife Elizabeth had conducted a wide-ranging interview with Rasiej that covered several subjects. They included the role of the internet versus mainstream media in providing election-related news and analysis, how effectively the candidates have utilized new media tools (apart from Republican Ron Paul not very, says Edwards,) and what Edwards' opinion is regarding Obama's decision not to accept public financing. Edwards also said that she'd been in touch, and hopes to stay in constant touch with Obama's healthcare policy team.

Obama's already proved himself as a grassroots candidate, and doesn't need to further make the point by opting for public financing, she said.

In addition, John McCain "isn't exactly in a position to call anyone a hypocrite," she said, since he's changed positions on his own policies, such as off-shore drilling.

Edwards said that it would be foolish to assume that voters' deep dissatisfaction with the state of the economy, the war in Iraq and President Bush would mean an easy victory for Obama.

"I expect we can expect a lot of incoming either from the McCain campaign, or the people affiliated with the campaign," she said, adding that she anticipates that much of the negative campaigning to happen "under the radar," and that "a lot of the stuff is occurring on the Net."

"Even I'm getting anti-Obama e-mails, and they're pretty inflammatory" she said. "I expect some voters are going to be affected by this – so we're going to have to fight for every vote."