ATLANTA (CNN) -- It was a simple slip of the tongue. But when the name you get wrong happens to be a former president and the husband of your chief rival, a few eyebrows raise.

Campaigning in Atlanta Thursday, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards was trying to make the case that it's time for another Southerner to become the Democratic nominee for president. The White House hopeful pointed out to an audience in the sun-lit atrium of the World Congress Center that it was 1976 when Georgia's own Jimmy Carter won the nomination and eventually the presidency.

And then he slipped up.

"Sixteen years later, in 1992, Bill Carter, excuse me, Bill Clinton," he said, sparking laughs from the crowd. "I ought to be able to remember that given what's going on, right?"

Edwards is competing against former President Bill Clinton's wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, to be the Democratic presidential nominee.

Once the names were squared away, Edwards continued, "Sixteen years later, in 2008, it's time for another Democrat from the South to win the Democratic nomination, carry the state and win the presidency."

Edwards was visiting Atlanta to address the Georgia Democratic Party's Jefferson-Jackson Dinner.