US: Voters did not seem to think Dean was the man to beat Bush, writes Conor O'Clery in Iowa
The most startling thing about the caucus held in Winterset's courthouse was the lack of enthusiasm for Mr Howard Dean. The former Vermont governor had paid several visits to the town, noted as the birthplace of John Wayne and the setting for Clint Eastwood's seduction of Meryl Streep in the movie The Bridges of Madison County, and had been leading in the polls in Iowa for months.
But when chairperson Ms Pam Deichman asked about 100 people crowded into the wood-panelled courtroom on Monday evening to split into preference groups, about 60 gathered by the judge's rostrum for Mr John Edwards, 30 congregated at the back for Mr John Kerry, but only 13 rallied in the jury box for Mr Dean. Most of the young people - supposedly Mr Dean's core support - were with Mr Kerry, and those in the jury box were mostly middle-aged.
Ms Deichman explained that the groups needed 15 bodies to be counted as "viable", and that under the rules, voters had half an hour to lobby their neighbours to change sides. Ms Lisa Ossian, the Dean "precinct captain", scurried across to the Edwards crowd, positioned strategically by the table with coffee and Oreo biscuits, and pleaded: "Come on, please, anyone, it won't make any difference to Edwards." Amid much laughing and derisory applause she persuaded four to cross the floor, and one Kerry supporter.
Subtracting a desertion to Kerry, the Dean group ended up viable, with 19 bodies, but it was a close call. Ms Deichman called time, the caucus clerk, Ms Joyce Kooker, a local insurance agent, did a quick calculation, and the result was announced.
The courtroom caucus would provide eight state delegates for Mr Edwards, four for Mr Kerry and two for Mr Dean (an overflow caucus downstairs came up with a similar tally).
The turnout here and across Iowa was greater than in previous years. In 1992 only 19 rural folk turned up at a caucus I attended in Ms Kooker's front room in the nearby village of Cummings. Over tea and sandwiches they had almost unanimously voted for no-hope candidate Mr Tom Harkin, just to let America know they liked their local senator. This time, judging by what Democratic voters said as they left, they were looking for a president who could beat George Bush, and Howard Dean wasn't the man. They liked him at first but found him too "prickly", said a corn farmer. "Edwards fought clean," said his wife, "He has a positive vision."
A neighbour said he voted for Mr Kerry because "he has the stature to stand up to George Bush on national security". Mr Drew Featherstone, a white-bearded former probation officer wearing a Dean T-shirt, was downcast. Plenty of his neighbours were going to vote Republican, he lamented. "What is striking to me is the failure of the education system in this country which has left people unable to see for themselves that Bush is so hideously incompetent."