Late Afternoon in Des Moines on Caucus Day

Didn't see any candidates today. They are making only a few appearances. Did spend a little time downtown and tried to catch a few observations of campaigns and media.

We ate lunch close to where Hillary will have her party tonight. Saw a number of her people walking about and caught one comment that may or may not be significant. Among 3 women who fit the core Hillary supporter according to polls, one said to the other two, "Keep the faith." Now this may mean nothing, but watching the media today and listening to Hillary's folks drop expectations for tonight throughout the day, I wonder if I caught a bit of the worry amongst the Hillary gang.

Obama headquaters had a lot of people going in and out as we passed by today. The campaign is reportedly telling out-of-sate volunteers to go home as they have plenty of people. In fact, they have so many, that we saw 4 Obama volunteers waving signs at passing cars on a street corner far from downtown and the news media hordes. I wanted to stop and ask them who they were, why they were there and how long they had to stay. I wondered how many folks Obama's organization has. There was another report of having 5000 drivers ready to drive folks to their caucus. It is possible that the former community organizer has built the best organization in the state. His people are not on TV, radio or print trying to lower expectations.

The other folks I glimpsed today were members of the horde of news media. The big convention center downtown is their gathering spot. Without credentials I couldn't get much beyond the front doors, but I stood and watched the scene while Justin headed up to where the credentialed media was allowed. There was a sense of privilege and slight disdain among the out-of-state media hordes. This is fascinating since it is the news media that makes Iowa important and yet when you see the working press in Iowa many seem to just want to leave as soon as possible. No one said anything and I only saw a few people I knew by name. The only conclusion I came away with was they should have just stayed home. These caucuses are covered beyond proper proportion and will be over analyzed the same way. Yet each time it looks at all interesting they come in mass. They could misread polls, overreact to small errors and declare various candidates "inevitable" or "dead" from wherever they usually work.

I'm too chicken to make a prediction. I'll mostly watch for how the media spins it all. I'd go to Obama's rally tonight, but the crowd will be massive and I'll see very little. Plus, I'm too much of a news junkie to not have a chance to see as much as I can.

Since I'll be close to my laptop, I'll post again as long as the wireless connection keeps working.