January 4, 2008 12:15 AM

Is 'evitable' a word? Maybe it is now

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View image Caucus prep in Adel By M.E. Sprengelmeyer

The road to Denver is paved with bumpy, red bricks.

And that means a bumpy ride for anyone who once carried the "inevitable" nominee tag.

What do we mean?

Well, if Iowa is a microcosm of the national White House contest, then a precinct caucus in the little, back roads town of Adel was an even tinier example of the run for the Democratic National Convention at the Pepsi Center.

In Adel, where the downtown streets are paved with bricks in honor of the masonry factory that built this town, the result perfectly matched Iowa's statewide results: Sen. Barack Obama first, former Sen. John Edwards second, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton third.

HERE'S THE FULL STORY from the old-fashioned, paper version of the Rocky Mountain News.

It highlights Clinton's struggle to connect on a personal level with average voters.

The caucus was raucous. And it was jam-packed, too. More than one-third of the participants were registering for the first time as Democrats -- either young first-time voters, change-driven independents or erstwhile Republicans.

And that's precisely what Obama needed to prove that his massive campaign rallies were not a mirage.

View image Campaigns woo supporters of "unviable" Bill Richardson

Watch www.RockyMountainNews.com for complete coverage from a six-person team on the ground in Iowa: Sprengelmeyer, columnist Mike Littwin, multi-tasking photographers Judy DeHaas, Chris Schneider and Matt McClain, and Mark Wolf of Rocky Talk Live.

And check back HERE in coming hours as we tally the results of yesterday's caucus predictions contest. (The judge has run out of "Rock Star" energy drink and so he's rather sluggish at the moment.)

View image Checking the math

UPDATE: We've declared a winner HERE.

Posted by M.E. Sprengelmeyer at 12:15 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack