COUNCIL BLUFFS – Temperature now: Partly cloudy, 4 degrees (feels like -11 degrees). Forecast for Thursday: Mostly sunny, some wind, with a high of 31 degrees.
This good news has some people predicting higher caucus turnout than usual. But watching some of these Edwards supporters, you get the sense that even if it’s snowing sheets, with face-ripping wind and toe-bruising temperatures, they’re still going to show up.
Or maybe that’s just the kind of people who showed up to a John Edwards pit stop at 10 p.m. tonight. Nearly a hundred people cram into the two rooms of the campaign’s Council Bluffs field office. Dozens more spill out into the cold, stomping their feet on the icy pavement while waiting for the guest of honor.
When he finally arrives, there’s a quick scare as Elizabeth Edwards slips on the black ice. John helps her up. “Are you okay?” someone asks. “No,” she says, but doesn’t show it.
Later inside, Edwards thanks for group for showing up: “You came out in the freezing weather.” “This ain’t nothing,” someone shouts. “You got that right brother,” Edwards replies.
For all the recent
, it seems true that people who do turn out take the process seriously. As Harlan, IA native Byron Christiansen put it to me, “You can’t just drop by during your lunch break. If you’re going to go out on a freezing winter night to stand around for a few hours, you’re going to know your stuff.”
