From Iowa: A Boy On The Bus

Veteran political reporters will tell you: a lot of time on the campaign trail is spent in transit. Shuttling from event to event like so much cattle. Over at the From the Road politics blog, Dean Reynolds has some impressions of what it's like traveling with the Obama campaign through Iowa:

I've been riding campaign buses since 1972, and I've always thought of them as a great way to see the country, to ride those backroads most Americans never take.

This time of year, with the temperature in the teens, the senses seem more acute perhaps because the air is so bracing.

But look at the farms! The barns seem redder, the cows browner set off against the whiter-than-white backdrop. Someone painstakingly built that frozen fence over there. Somebody will ford that icy stream over there to gather his livestock.

Someone bailed that hay lying in frozen circular bundles. Someone set out the stream of decorations that are a feature of most little towns in this state, the holiday lights binding people together as one.