Chilly Caucus Night

Wow! Its so cool to see Iowa plastered all over the national news. And, believe me, it is cool, as in frigid, in Iowa right now. Today has been cold, and windy to boot. The presidential hopefuls must rue the fact of being forced to spend time in Iowa in January. Why couldn't it be Florida, or California, or Arizona! Why, Iowa!? And, I'm sure I can't answer that. I have no idea how Iowa came to be host to the first caucuses of the year.

We've had our share of phone calls from various campaigns over the past few days. Ron Paul's people called several times yesterday.......with a recorded voice saying that if we want less government, vote for their man. Many flyers have come in the mail......today's were from Mike Huckabee.......what a name.......how would "President Huckabee" sound? Kind of odd. I'm not sure about him anyway......seems like he blew in from nowhere with his "I'm a Christian" claims. As if that should tell us he is capable of being president.

But, why am I even commenting. I won't make it to a caucus tonight. The Democratic one is at a local high school, and the Republican one is a county-wide one being held about 20 miles away. It would be interesting to go, but it won't work out for me.

Truly, I have no favorite candidate. But, I've watched a few debates on TV, and many news reports. Nobody yet stands out to me in a special way. Although, someone impressed me the other day on a news report.......Michelle Obama. I had not seen her before, or heard her speak. Oddly enough, she has more of an aura of leadership than her husband does, in my limited opinion.

John Edwards reminds me of my son's orthodontist, and not that that matters. Edwards seems like a nice person, although strong Southern accents make me cringe. Hillary......well, I don't know......there's a lot of iffy baggage in her political past. Mitt Romney.......I don't know about him, either.......he looks too perfect.

Well, the phone just rang, and it was another recording from the Ron Paul campaign, warning me that Fred Thompson has voted to fund pro-abortion groups.

I'd better quit blogging and go watch the caucus results come in......and sit close to the phone in case another campaign calls.

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9:00 p.m. - Caucus report, straight from my son who attended his precinct's Republican caucus in Davenport. Good for him! I'm glad he went.

He said in his precinct's room, there were 105 votes cast. Mike Huckabee won with 38 votes, and Mitt Romney came in second with 33. He thinks McCain got 22 votes, and Fred Thompson, 11. Rudy Giuliani nabbed 1 vote.

My son said it all was very informal. They sat around in their caucus room, listening to a few people speak up for various candidates. Then they cast their votes on little slips of paper, and waited to hear the results after the votes were counted.

He said the Democratic caucuses were going on in the same school building he was in, and on his way out he overheard a woman say, "Well, at least Hillary didn't win."

It will be interesting to see if the voting of this Davenport precinct comes very close to reflecting the overall results in Iowa on this chilly caucus night.

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10:00 p.m. - News reports say Barack Obama has won on the Democratic side, with John Edwards and Hillary Clinton running neck in neck for second place. I wonder if Obama's win is at all related to his wife's active campaigning in the last few days here in Iowa. Like I said earlier......she is impressive.

Mike Huckabee is the winner for the Republicans, with Mitt Romney second. Huckabee's victory speech was just on TV. With Chuck Norris smiling right behind him, Huckabee called himself a "choice for change" and said his win will ignite a "prairie fire of new hope and zeal".