Election campaign enters decisive stage in Iowa

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - The long and sometimes baffling drama of electing a U.S. president, marked by obscure rules and long-held traditions, enters its decisive stage in two weeks.

The nominee of each party will be determined via a grueling marathon of state-by-state contests that begins on January 3 in Iowa and is followed five days later in New Hampshire, with all other states joining in over the next few months.

Eight Democrats and eight Republicans, many of whom have been campaigning for more than a year, are vying for the right to face off in the November 4, 2008, election to choose a successor to Republican President George W. Bush, who will leave office after two terms.

This year the calendar of state nominating contests has been moved up so Iowa and New Hampshire will be followed quickly in January by contests in Nevada, South Carolina, Michigan and Florida.

That will be followed by "Super Tuesday" on February 5, when more than 20 states hold nominating contests that could determine the ultimate winner. All of the state contests are concluded by early June.

The contests are typically either caucuses, where voters gather at local meetings to declare their presidential preference, often publicly, or primaries, in which votes are cast at polling places by secret ballot.

Iowa holds the first caucus and New Hampshire the first primary. Iowa Democrats conduct their caucuses in public, with supporters of each candidate breaking into groups. Iowa Republicans gather publicly to cast a private ballot in what is essentially a straw poll.

COMPETING FOR DELEGATES

The candidates compete in each state for delegates who will support them at the party's national nominating conventions in late summer, when the candidate who wins a majority of the delegates will be nominated.

Among Democrats, Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, are battling atop the Iowa polls and hoping a win will spark a run through the later contests.

The other Democratic contenders are Sens. Joseph Biden of Delaware and Chris Dodd of Connecticut, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich and former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel.

Among Republicans, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney lead polls in Iowa, while former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani leads most national polls.

The other major contenders are Arizona Sen. John McCain, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, and Reps. Ron Paul of Texas, Duncan Hunter of California and Tom Tancredo of Colorado.

Once the nomination is decided, the winner will choose a vice presidential running mate. The general election campaign begins in earnest in early September after the conventions.

As Bush showed in 2000, when Democrat Al Gore received the most votes but Bush won the election, the U.S. president is not directly elected by the people, but by a body established under the Constitution called the Electoral College.