Iowa turnout crucial to success

Presidential hopefuls urged their partisans to brave the cold and rally fellow Iowans to the caucuses Thursday, a massive test of organisation that held the key to victory in the first contests of the 2008 election season. Capturing the urgency and biting chill in the air, Barack Obama implored his people, "Walk quick, talk fast."
Iowans, courted for months by candidates barnstorming their towns, swamping their airwaves and, in the later rounds, bickering with each other, finally give shape to the presidential race in a caucus ritual rooted in a centuries-old tradition of political activism.