Neck and Neck As the Big Four Tackle First Hurdle in Race for White House

John Kerry paces around the circle of chairs laid out in Maquoketa middle school, and stakes his claim to be America's next president. It is standard political fare: taxes, jobs, healthcare, schools. But then Mr Kerry, who never misses a chance to remind an audience that he is a Vietnam war hero, thunders: "I'm a fighter. That is why this campaign is alive and moving in the state of Iowa because I know how to fight."

That fighting instinct could stand Mr Kerry in good stead in today's Iowa caucuses, the most wild, unpredictable and savagely fought Democratic party contest in years. All four contenders look to be in a dead heat, although a poll in yesterday's Des Moines Register newspaper put Mr Kerry ahead of the field with 26% of likely caucus goers.

John Edwards, the senator from North Carolina who was stuck at 5% in Iowa in November, surged to 23%. Howard Dean, once the frontrunner, was on 20%, and Dick Gephardt, a virtual native son here, was last on 18%.

Opinion surveys are notoriously unreliable in Iowa - and polling is especially tricky this year. Forty-seven per cent of respondents told the Register they could change their minds at their caucus meeting. They are complicated three-hour affairs which typically feature a lot of horse-trading.

But the Register's results are in line with other polls and reinforce a trend. That's good news for Mr Kerry, who seems to have injected new focus and verve into a sluggish campaign style. One of his strategists says the slow start and late turnaround is typical of Mr Kerry, likening him to a boy who waits until the last minute to do his homework.

It's even better news for Mr Edwards, who has used his youthful good looks and his niceness in a down-and-dirty campaign, to project himself as a serious alternative.

For Mr Dean, who had been counting on scoring knock-out victories in Iowa and New Hampshire's primaries next week, the aura of invincibility has gone. The insurgent candidate who symbolised Democratic anger at George Bush and frustration with the party establishment has lost popular momentum, despite gathering the most heavyweight endorsements.

Yesterday, Mr Dean left Iowa to court the Democrats' elder statesman, Jimmy Carter, returning with praise but no firm endorsement. But the appearance could help Mr Dean next week in New Hampshire against a concerted challenge from General Wesley Clark.

For Mr Gephardt, today's caucuses could be a matter of political survival.

The outcome now depends on whether that late rush of enthusiasm for Mr Kerry and Mr Edwards trumps the far superior organisation of Mr Gephardt and Mr Dean. While Mr Dean has his legions of volunteers, Mr Gephardt has more than 500 professional organisers from the Teamsters and steelworkers.

In the southern industrial belt of Iowa, which provides the backbone of Mr Gephardt's support, people in union households say they are receiving five or six phone calls a day from his campaign staff asking for their support.

In Des Moines, Mr Dean's volunteers, who have flooded in from California, Texas and the east coast, are hunting down the "hidden voters" whose views have not turned up in the opinion polls. The volunteer brigades hit the city's gay and lesbian bars at the weekend, promoting Mr Dean's support as governor of Vermont for civil unions.

The intensity of the efforts to court just 100,000 to 150,000 caucus goers marks one of the peculiarities of America's politics - which for a few weeks make this sparsely populated state the sole focus of the primary season.

To the exasperation of America's celebrity pundits, forced to endure a primary season migration to the chill of a midwestern winter, Iowans are power-mad provincials who exert undue influence on the outcome of presidential elections.

Traditionally, Iowa is the winnowing state. It has nearly always broken those candidates that do not make it into the top tier, and has provided a springboard for political unknowns, starting with Mr Carter, who used it so effectively in 1976.

Iowans take their politics very seriously. Don Beck, who raises hogs near the south-eastern town of Danville (population 1,000), makes it his winter project. He has written or emailed for position papers from all of the candidates, and plotted their responses on a computer spreadsheet. Although he first met Mr Gephardt nearly 20 years ago, he says his support was not automatic.

"We here in Iowa have an extraordinary opportunity to winnow the chaff for the rest of the country to look to Iowa to tell them what to think," he says. "Traditionally, we have done a good job in picking a viable candidate."

This year, that responsibility is greater than before. Democrats in Iowa are extremely partisan, and have a particular hatred of Mr Bush. They want to pick a winner, and that appears to have helped Mr Kerry during his stop at Maquoketa the other day.

"We have to get a Democrat who in the long run can withstand the onslaught that is coming," says Kim Huckstadt, a superintendent of district schools.

The skewed system and the intensity of the contest have forced candidates to travel 500 miles a day in search of a handful of votes. It also means that any Iowan with a fleeting interest in politics has been able to meet national figures face to face - a rarity in American politics which is largely conducted by television ads.

Since the summer, Mr Huckstadt has met Mr Kerry, Mr Gephardt, and Dennis Kucinich, a fringe liberal candidate, because all thought it was worth the trek to a town with a population of 6,000.

What the audiences lack in size, they make up in sophistication. At the Maquoketa meeting, Mr Kerry was grilled on his student loans, campaign strategy and Mr Bush's education reforms. Chuck Jorgenson, a retired teacher, arrived at the meeting undecided, but after hearing Mr Kerry field questions was leaning towards a decision.

"What impressed me was the fact that he is going to talk to southerners about basic American values," he says.

In part, Mr Kerry and Mr Edwards have Mr Gephardt to thank for their surge in support. Mr Gephardt has run an intense and expensive television campaign of negative ads against Mr Dean, which has helped to take the shine off his campaign.

"I followed Howard Dean because he was gaining momentum and the polls were putting him ahead," Mr Huckstadt says. "But the more I followed him, I thought the opposing party would like Howard Dean to be our candidate because they were going to have a heyday with him."

Sadly for Mr Gephardt, the ads may not have helped his own campaign. He is fighting against an image as yesterday's man. The Missouri congressman has been scrabbling for campaign funds. If he cannot win in the neighbouring state of Iowa, Mr Gephardt is unlikely to get the money he needs to carry on.

That realisation has propelled Mr Gephardt into a frenetic round of campaign appearances. "This election may be determined by one vote in one precinct. That's how close it could be," he told a union hall in Burlington, south-east Iowa.

That's a cliche in politics, but in the vast rolling plains of Iowa, the appeal rings true.

Several among the crowd filtering out of the hall after hearing Mr Gephardt speak say he has always struck them as a decent man. Debbie Bliesener, 54 and a worker at the local phone company, says she is impressed with his stump speech about his out-of-work father, and his son's battle with cancer.

She has never been involved in a caucus before but felt so guilty under the barrage of calls from Mr Gephardt's supporters she turned out to hear him speak. "I like the fact that he knows what it is like to be at the bottom," she says.

The problem for Mr Gephardt is that he needs to be seen as a winner tonight, if he is going to make it to the next stages in the primary season.

Key dates

Today Iowa caucuses

January 27 New Hampshire primary

February 3 'Mini Super Tuesday' - primaries in South Carolina, Oklahoma, Arizona, Missouri, Delaware; caucuses in New Mexico and North Dakota

March 2 'Super Tuesday' - primaries in California, Texas, Georgia, Vermont, Washington, Maryland, Connecticut, Ohio, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island; caucuses in Minnesota

March 9 Primaries in Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi

July 26-29 Democratic national convention, Boston

August 30 - September 2 Republican national convention, New York City

November 2 Election day