PLEASANTVILLE, Iowa -- I shared a long coffee hour talking politics and caucus with the "Coffee Ladies" of Pleasantville, a small rural town some 30 miles southeast of Des Moines off of Route 5. It was a very cold morning but the drive there was stunning: rolling white farmland glistened in the sun. The highest building in town is a silo at the Smith Fertilizer and Grain company but the coffee at the Smokey Row, a coffee and fountain shop, was good (the recommended bisquits and gravy breakfast was delicious) and the conversation was lively. A picture of Barack Obama sipping coffee in Smokey Row was hung by the cash register (he'd stopped by two weeks earlier) with a caption: "You never know who's going to stop by the Row."
I was there courtesy of Joyce Chamberlain, who has been the Democratic precinct chair in Pleasantville (population: maybe 2,000) since 1976 and the coffee group has been a regular part of the routine of some 25 ladies -- the men folk get their coffee elsewhere -- who talk of what people nomrally talk about on a daily basis. Needless to say, the talk of late has been the caucus and little else. Of the 11 I talked to today, 10 were planning to attend the local Democratic precinct caucus which could draw as many as 150 -- which Chamberlain told me would make it quite crowded at the local Memorial Building It's the largest of 17 caucuses in Marion County.(Republicans have their caucus across the county in Pella.) The coffee ladies were well known in the area and campaign staffers have stopped by regularly to make the cases for their candidates. While I was pleasantly grilled about what I thought and who I'd seen on the campaign trail in first-in-the-galaxy primary land, I managed to get an early caucus beakdown. In an very informal and impromptu straw poll, the support broke down like this: Edwards 3, Richardson 3, Obama 3, Clinton 1 and one undecided (between Hillary and Obama).
My favorite quote from the coffee ladies about the fluid nature of the caucus process came from Rose Warren: "I stand my ground 'til the last minute."
Read more about my visit to Pleasantville in tomorrow's Out on a Limb column at seacoastonline.com.
Beginning at 6 p.m. local time, it will be media traffic jam time as the Clinton, Obama and Edwards campaigns have purchased up to two minutes of local news time to make the final plea. It's an expensive plea for support but one that will gnerate more buzz for the buck than the typical homogenized ad. At the same time I've been invited to a Caucus Media Reception at the Des Moines Art Center -- it's this sort of appreciation for hard-working scribes (food and drink included) that makes Iowa unique.
In the shameless promotion department, New York Times blogger Michael Falcone picked up my "fish out of water" musings of a New Hampshire primary devotee covering the fuss in Iowa. Read his take here.
Latest caucus night weather forecast: Balmy in the 20s.
ADVERTISEMENTS 
