"Iowa Caucuses: Checking In at a Democratic Site"

MELISSA BLOCK, Host:

It's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.

ROBERT SIEGEL, Host:

And Linda, you're at the Democratic caucus. We spoke about a half an hour ago, things were just getting started. Where are we now? And this is just one of the hundreds and hundreds of Democratic caucuses across the state of Iowa.

LINDA WERTHEIMER: So they counted off, they figured it out, it was 20. Everybody went to stand in their corners. They had, you know, Hillary people goes to stand by the Hillary poster. Obama people over there in the middle. Dodd people are at the back. There was a hand-lettered sign for Kucinich who apparently did not have any posters and three people stood under that so they're not viable. The Bidens aren't viable. The Edwardses are barely viable, and the Richardsons are short ones so they all went after the Bidens. And now, they're out there trying to negotiate and work it out. They're all out of there corners and they're all talking and there are a bunch of kids playing by the door. It's a fairly confusing, lively, amazing piece of democracy in action.

SIEGEL: And they're talking ideas and politics? They're not trading jobs here, are they, in the middle of the caucus?

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

WERTHEIMER: They're actually moving very fast at this caucus. They should be pretty much ready to count the thing down. They'll take a half hour for what they call persuasion, and then they'll count again.

SIEGEL: It's NPR's Linda Wertheimer at the Democratic caucus...

(SOUNDBITE OF COUGH)

SIEGEL: We'll be hearing from Linda Wertheimer again. We'll have more coverage later in this hour at throughout the evening.