The 47th race to the White House has just passed its first formal milepost, last week's Iowa delegate-selection caucuses. Yet TIME'S campaign correspondents feel as if they have already endured as many bad meals, standard stump speeches, lost luggage and bumpy flights as most Americans do in a lifetime. In the process of reporting for this week's Nation and Press stories on the Iowa balloting and its implications, our "boys on the bus" paused to assess life on the campaign trail. Among their impressions so far:
National Political Correspondent John Stacks began covering the...