B3: Here’s a dispatch filed Satuday afternoon by Carolyn Schmidt, our citizen journalist, operating out of Cedar Rapids, Falls, Iowa, an election hot spot
As always, Iowans take the snow, Pakistan assassination, and all in stride
By Carolyn Schmidt
Cedar Rapids, Iowa–We had a 4-5 inch snow fall Friday on top of what’s already on the ground (19 inches for the month of December). Richardson cancelled his appearances, but the others soldiered on–evidently not expecting much of a turnout for their rallies. Iowans take this all in stride, of course, so when Obama noted that the 900 people who showed up to hear him at Northwest Junior High School in Coralville (a growing city just outside of Iowa City) was “an unbelievable crowd,” one woman said, “I went to see him in Cedar Rapids in an ice storm that was 10 times worse than this.”
More than 200 people turned out to hear John Edwards at a restaurant in the smaller town of Independence, and Edwards admitted he’d anticipated about 50.