Trailhead: A campaign blog.

Live Caucus: The Long Shots

GRINNELL, Iowa—I swing by the groups caucusing for Biden and Richardson. A lonely female Biden supporter is looking for a sticker. “Do you guys have any stickers?” “I have a button,” says an old lady.

One Biden fan, Vera Cousins, says she doesn’t know who her second choice is. “It was going to be Chris Dodd, but he’s even lower.” Edwards or Obama will have to do, she says.

The Richardson folks say they expect to be viable in the second round, once supporters have gone to their second choices. A Obama supporter and Grinnell student, Greg Swanson, drifts over to chat with his Richardson-loving friends. I ask if they can stay friends after this. “We’re all Democrats here,” he says. “I saw an Edwards supporter sitting with his wife at the Hillary table.” I ask Swanson if the NRA hat he’s wearing is meant to be ironic. “Yes, it is,” he says.

Live Caucus: Out-of-Towners

GRINNELL, Iowa—About 150 students have come in from out of town. Out of a student population of 1,500, 85 percent of whom are from outside Iowa, that’s not a whole lot. But since only a few hundred people are caucusing, the out-of-towners do make a difference. The school has opened up its gym, where they’ve laid out sleeping bags and blankets for the night.

One of them is Mikel Shybut, who’s here to support Obama. He drove over from Nebraska since “this might be the last chance I have” to caucus as first in the nation. I ask him if he thinks it’s unfair that one state is so influential. “Yeah. But since it’s my state, I’m not complaining.”