
[M]y 4 a.m. alarm didn’t beep when it was supposed to Saturday, so I missed my flight from New England to corn country.
I missed a good day for Bernie Sanders in Iowa. He revved up more than 3,800 young people at a stump speech in Iowa City, sang with the indie rock group Vampire Weekend, and was showered with praise by Cornel West, according to Paul Heintz of Seven Days, who was there and knows how to set an alarm.
After urgent pleas to a Delta agent at Logan Airport, I managed to finagle a flight for 5 a.m. Sunday. I set two alarms on my phone, one on my girlfriend’s, and an extra backup on my laptop.
This time, at 4 a.m., the beeps beeped.
Waiting for my plane to Des Moines at the Minneapolis airport, I feverishly scanned Twitter for the latest updates from the ground in Iowa. I felt like I was too late to the party.
That is, until I looked up and spotted Sarah Palin in a corner. If she’s here, I thought, then I can’t be missing it all.
We flew together to Des Moines, and chatted briefly in the airport about her man, Donald Trump, as well as Bernie Sanders.
He’s a “politician gutsy enough to go rogue,” Palin said about Sanders, and Trump.

The ground in Iowa had thawed since my last visit and was muddy and soft when I arrived at 11 a.m. Sunday. Snow had melted, and the sun was out.
The Sanders canvassers I followed Sunday afternoon said they were grateful for the balmy conditions.
Erin Litte, 29, said the political exercise of knocking on doors, which she had been doing all weekend, felt a bit like Halloween.
“Trump canvassers are the tricks,” she said. “We are the treats.”
The canvassers encountered a number of Sanders supporters (and a lot of dogs) during their walks between blocks. A number of conservatives were also in the mix.
Jerry Chappell, a 36-year-old Baptist choir director, said he was backing firebrand Sen. Ted Cruz, of Texas, who ended up winning the Iowa Republican caucuses.
“I don’t think it’s the responsibility of the government to take from one person and give to another,” he said, wearing a shirt and tie after Sunday Mass. “That’s a big reason why I definitely don’t like Bernie Sanders.”
Chappell said Trump was full of baloney. “I think he’s a Democrat,” he said.
A few blocks away in a small yard marked with a white cross, Mike Huff, 62, also said he didn’t like Trump. Huff planned to caucus for Sen. Marco Rubio, of Florida, but said he would vote for Sanders over Trump in a general election.
“There’s just too many red flags for Hillary,” Huff said. “Bernie has proven himself to be more solid.”
I was accompanied on the canvass shift by two Slovenian journalists. “I come from a socialist country,” one told me, “and I know Sanders is not real socialist.”

As the candidates held their final Iowa rallies Sunday, the campaigns engaged in a game of psychological warfare. Sanders spoke at Grand View University in Des Moines. As is often the case, his communications staff proudly circulated a crowd count of 1,700 to reporters halfway through the speech.
A few miles away, Hillary Clinton made her last rally her largest, boasting a crowd count of 2,600. It was a jab at Team Sanders with only hours before the caucuses started.
Turnout by voters Monday was notable, too.
At Merrill Middle School in Des Moines, known Monday as caucus location 62 in Polk County, Jeffrey Goetz, a caucus chair since 2002, said he had never seen so many people.
Shortly before the caucus began, volunteers ran out of official registration cards, and Goetz had to page the school’s principal for access to the photocopier. More than 760 people ended up caucusing for Democrats.

After scrambling, arguing and a realignment, Clinton ended up winning Polk 62, with 462 supporters to Sanders’ 246.
One of the six uncommitted caucusgoers in the room was Mike Kalhorn.
He didn’t have many good things to say about Clinton, beyond that she seemed more electable than Sanders.
In 2000, he said, he went with principles over politics and voted for Ralph Nader, who later was accused of helping George W. Bush triumph over Al Gore.
“I don’t know if Bernie can win a general election. That’s my issue — he’s so left,” Kalhorn said.
A number of young people were on the Sanders side of the gym, including Scott Folsom, 21. He said he has been following Sanders for years, explaining, “In my teen years I was a bit of a C-Span junkie. It’s weird — don’t ask.”
“I’ve always just admired the fact that he’s stuck with fairly socialist principles his entire career,” Folsom continued. “I fancy myself a bit of a socialist, so I’m glad somebody like that is even considered a mainstream voice in the Democratic Party at this point.”

At the Sanders victory party, held at the fanciest Holiday Inn I’ve ever been to, people were pumped up.
Blue and red and white beams of light zigzagged across the walls. People screamed Sanders slogans, and a senior Sanders adviser danced on a chair to a Michael Jackson song.
With MSNBC declaring the race too close to call, the tone was upbeat and victorious.
I bumped into Terry Wells at the party, a long-bearded Sanderista I met on my last trip to Iowa.
“This is a win for Bernie Sanders,” he said. “I told you, do you remember? I said we don’t have to win Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina. We just have to be close. Get the momentum going, get her running scared.”
When all the precinct results were counted by early Tuesday, Sanders didn’t win Iowa, according to The Associated Press.
The delegate allocations — 23 for Clinton and 21 for Sanders — may not have Clinton running scared, but she’s likely walking briskly.

I didn’t need an alarm for my 5:30 a.m. flight out of Des Moines on Tuesday. I was already up, finishing a story, when I needed to drive to the airport.
But I would again be delayed, this time by a blizzard that barreled into Des Moines early in the morning, crippling the airport hours after all the candidates (and the fancy press) flew out to New Hampshire on private planes.
The heavy snow blanketed runways, covered campaign billboards and weighed down lawn signs. The white flakes seemed to cleanse the Iowa countryside after a long and often dirty political fight here.
My 5:30 a.m. flight was canceled, then a later one. As of this writing, I’m still in the Des Moines airport, hoping and praying for a 5:30 p.m. plane.
Waiting in Concourse A of the Des Moines airport, I again checked Twitter to see what was happening in New Hampshire, where the nation’s first primary is now just a week away.
I was disappointed to miss a Sanders rally at the Claremont opera house scheduled for Tuesday at 6 p.m. Again I felt I was missing a story and the action on the ground.
But then I heard a commotion and looked up from my computer. Square in front of me was Sarah Palin, walking to her gate.
I was reassured. If she was here, then I can’t be missing it all.


