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By Root 1055 0

feet as people tried to get into an already full room. The press was crowded against the walls as more people poured in. At the far corner of the room open double doors led outdoors. There, people were standing in the snow, jumping up in the air periodically to see. I had been traveling in my own little polite and orderly world—I’d go to a library and people were nice to me and then I would go on to the next event. This was my first taste of what John was living through. After John spoke, people were tearing the signs off of the walls. They were handing up anything that could be signed—napkins, envelopes. Here’s the back of my deposit slip, sign that. They couldn’t get enough, and John couldn’t get out. As Dick Gephardt had predicted, lots had changed in Iowa.

The following Sunday when the Des Moines Register headline was “Kerry, Edwards Surge,” the world, which was already fireworks all the time, erupted further. John had a staff meeting to thank these incredible Iowa staff—young people who had stuck in there through months of single digits in the polls. The campaign office was a converted auto parts store with one working bathroom—on good days—right on a major thoroughfare. We could hardly get in because there were so many TV cameras. Every press person you’ve ever heard of was there. Tom Brokaw knocking over George Stephanopoulos, Kelly O’Donnell screaming for her cameraperson, Tim Russert waving at the children. I stepped back to look at the chaos, and a polite Japanese reporter came with his cameraman. “Why,” he said, “do you support Senator Edwards?” “Well, I have lots of reasons, but one of them is that I am married to him.” Surprised, he asked a question or two more, then ended by saying, “Domo–arigato.” To which I responded, “Do–itashimashite.” One word in Japanese generated another five minutes of questions.

The Iowa caucuses take place on a Monday evening. It makes the Monday important and useless at the same time. Basically, you have done all that you can do, and the day is often spent making certain your supporters will turn out that night. We had a morning of television scheduled in which we would do that reminding. John got up first, showered, and left for a series of interviews. My first appearance would be on the Today show, an interview with Campbell Brown. I showered and dressed. I had lost my hairbrush the previous day, but we had stopped at a drugstore and, from a meager selection, I hurriedly picked the best replacement. And now I was standing in front of the mirror at the Hotel Fort Des Moines, drying my hair and trying to style it with this new brush. I reached around to the back of my head, wrapped the damp hair around the brush, and held it there while I aimed the dryer at the brush. And then, as I have done thousands of times, I tried to pull the brush away. It wouldn’t come. I put the dryer down and tried to work the hair loose from the brush with my fingers, but the brush was in the back of my head and I couldn’t see which way to work. Five minutes, then ten, and the brush was still there. I was alone and due downstairs soon. I called Jennifer, sure she could fix it, but she didn’t answer—she had gone with John and, during his interviews, had turned her phone off. I called Miles Lackey, John’s chief of staff, in his room. Hearing the alarm in my voice, he hurried down. Now, Miles grew up with only brothers, he was balding, and he hadn’t any notion how to help. He pulled and wrestled with the brush, but it did no good. Then I had another try, and he would BlackBerry Jennifer in panic. I couldn’t go on television with a hairbrush sticking out from the back of my head. Finally he spotted a fork, left over from a meal someone had eaten in our room the night before. He washed it and used the tines to pry the hair loose from the hairbrush. Every yank hurt, and every yank was bliss. Finally it was out. I combed my still-damp hair with John’s comb and hurried downstairs. With only a minute to spare, I fell into the seat opposite Campbell. I have no idea what I said or how I looked; I only know that