Hello from the 36-hour “Marathon for the Middle Class,” featuring John Edwards, his “Main Street Express” bus, another bus full of journalists trailing close behind, and a non-stop sprint through the darkness of what is shaping up to be a very long, and very interesting, Iowa night.

There are no power outlets on the press bus (cue the jokes about “two Americas” and the John Edwards energy policy), so we’re all fighting battery death. Thus far the stops have been too quick and chaotic to recharge laptops, but here in Cass County I have a brief moment with a power outlet and a wifi connection, hence some photoblogging. Oh, the places I’ve been:

7:15 p.m. Jan 1
A phone bank at the United Steelworkers Local 164 in Des Moines…

…where the media watched the media watch the phone-bankers…

…and the place was very, very packed…

…and yours truly failed to know who this was…

…and also had to be coached on the pop-culture importance of another semi-celebrity endorser in attendance, Jean Smart, who even has a local connection, being from Seattle and all.

9ish p.m. Jan. 1
On the bus, somewhere in the middle of nowhere

10:00 p.m. Jan. 1
A campaign office in Council Bluffs, where the candidate makes time for the local news…

…and the locals know what to wear in temperatures that people in the crowd put at somewhere between 10 above and 10 below zero…

…and the candidate takes a moment to look a distressed supporter in the eye and tell her, “God Bless You.”