Hello and welcome to Whistle Stop a podcast of campaign curiosities.

I'm John Dickerson, host of Face the Nation. The Battle in Iowa for the Democratic Caucus in 2008 was perhaps the most titanic battle in the history of politics

To see who would win the first election in a half a century without an incumbent president or vice president running.

In the one corner you had Hillary Clinton, the establishment, wife, first lady of a former

president, she had money, she had name ID, she had the former Governor of the State working

on her behalf in Iowa. Any other corner you had John Edwards, the Flaxen-haired former Vice Presidential nominee of the previous

cycle in 2004 who had basically lived and camped out in the state where he had done pretty well in 2004 before he became

John Kerry's running mate.

And then finally you had the superstar first term senator whose speech at the Democratic Convention in 2004

had caused swooning in Democratic ranks unseen since Mario Cuomo's speech at the convention in 1984,

or Ted Kennedy in 1980.

The Democrats have been out of the White House for two terms.

Now they had a chance to get back in, remove America from its wars

that had gone sideways, repair a broken economy that was in the middle of

recession. There was also a two-thirds chance that this kickoff event in Iowa would lead to history

that it would be the beginning for the first African-American nominee of a

major party or the first woman nominee of a major party and if any of the top front runners won

Obama Edwards or Clinton they'd be the first senator since John Kennedy to

move directly from the Senate to the White House. Hard whistle stop today is November 10th, 2007, and

we're in Des Moines, Iowa. The Democrats have gathered for their annual Jefferson Jackson

Day dinner, the chief fundraising event of the year, and the night is stuffed,

stopped with drama during this presidential contest.

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