Caucus Day Finally Arrives in Iowa

It's not Super Bowl Sunday but it IS Caucus Day 2008.

The candidates are ready – some holding true to their dream, others ready to pack it in, even if they're not quite ready to admit it. By midnight tonight, a few will be celebrating, and others will be fretting over what to do next. A few tears will probably be shed as well.

For John Edwards, this day and night are huge. I spoke with him earlier this morning. Upbeat as always. Smile intact. Eyes bright and focused and telling. The courtroom stare – the confidence portrayed before a jury was there – but I felt I also sensed a touch of holding one's breath. Just a little tentative. That's my read – could be right, could be wrong.

Either way, he knows the stakes are higher than most of us will ever know. This is serious business. He's put himself out there for criticism and examination in ways most human beings will never comprehend.

I've covered John Edwards since his first political campaign in 1998. I was with him in Iowa long before he declared as a presidential candidate in 2004. We've talked politics, issues, family, government, war, immigration, daughters, religion, music, sports, health, health care, North Carolina, poverty, journalism, writing and much more.

It's been a long journey from mills to millions, from Raleigh to rallies, from courtrooms to caucuses. He knows people admire him and disdain him. He accepts that politics brings out the best in people and the worst.

The single mother without health care embraces him. A physician will never support him because of Edwards' history in malpractice cases.

Funny how we each view the world through different slices of life's prism.

Tonight, millions of words will be written, political fortunes will be chronicled and another page of American history will be turned.

Then we do it all again next week in New Hampshire.