By Monday night, Iowa will be the first state to give the presidential hopefuls its verdict on their chances when the results come in from 2,100 caucus meetings.
The Iowa caucuses are this mid-West state's version of a presidential primary and by tradition they are the first test of the candidates in this election year. The first real primary comes in New Hampshire a week later and the pundits disagree over how Iowa's results will influence the voters one thousand miles away in the east.
Iowa, which produced John Wayne, Glenn Miller and Buffalo Bill Cody, is sometimes called derisively "the flyover state" as it attracts little attention except in a presidential election year. Its farmers produce more pork, corn and grain than any other state, so aspiring presidents quickly learn how to pander to the farming vote.
Former senator Bill Bradley, who is contesting the Democratic nomination with Vice-President Al Gore, used to be opposed to the generous government subsidy for ethanol which Iowa farmers produce in large quantities as a fuel additive. But now Mr Bradley is in favour of the subsidy, as he has come to "see things differently" than he did from his own state of New Jersey.
Many Americans wonder why this agricultural state, which ranks 30th in population, should have the kind of clout that has the presidential hopefuls camped there for long periods in the past year. Mr Gore has made 35 trips, and his Democratic rival, Mr Bradley, has made 31 but has spent 57 days in the state compared with 39 for Mr Gore.
This looks like a mistake on Mr Bradley's part. The opinion polls give Mr Gore a big lead and Mr Bradley, who is having further irregular heart-beat problems, seems resigned to coming in second. But the Bradley camp spin is that if he does better than Ted Kennedy did against President Carter in 1980, it will be a moral victory.
Senator Kennedy and three other members of the clan have been campaigning for Mr Gore in Iowa in recent weeks. The senator recalled that he first came there in 1960 for his brother Jack. But in 1980, when he was fighting for the Democratic nomination against incumbent President Carter, the senator was walloped by 59 per cent to 31 per cent and the Kennedy campaign never really recovered from this poor start, according to some commentators.
On the Republican side, Governor George Bush is so far ahead in the polls that the main interest is in who comes second, probably billionaire publisher Steve Forbes. But like Mr Gore, Governor Bush is facing a much tougher contest in New Hampshire, where Senator John McCain is ahead in the polls. Mr McCain long ago decided he would not contest Iowa, which means he has more money to spend on TV ads in New Hampshire.
The pundits are poring over past results from Iowa to show how dangerous it can be to draw conclusions from them. In 1980, Ronald Reagan lost there by 2 per cent to George Bush and was pronounced "politically dead". Mr Reagan went on to win the Republican nomination and the presidency.
Then in 1988, Mr Bush, who was then vice-president, was beaten into third place in the Iowa caucuses but went on to win the nomination and the presidency.
The Iowa caucus system is old-fashioned and disdains any modern technology. Voters meet at their local precincts and after hours of discussion on the merits of the candidates, they are asked to raise their hands or stand on one side of the room to indicate their preference.
Results from the 2,100 caucuses will trickle in during the night from the two parties. Independents, of which there are a sizeable number in Iowa, can decide on the night whether to cast their vote in a Democratic or Republican caucus meeting.
Although there are 1.8 million registered voters, it is estimated that only about 200,000 will bother to attend what younger people see as a boring evening of discussions about rural issues. Agriculture is becoming less important in Iowa, where farming income has fallen from 15 per cent of the total in 1965 to only 3 per cent today.
In cities like the state capital, Des Moines, service industries are growing fast and unemployment in the state is only 2.1 per cent. Yet the presidential candidates trek down country lanes looking for votes and try to appear knowledgeable about cattle prices.
Mr Gore boasts of his background in rural Tennessee before he began living in a Washington hotel with his parents. He promised to help a farmer who complained about getting butted by a 300-pound ram whenever he was working with his ewes.
The Gore campaign tried to embarrass Mr Bradley by having him followed around the hustings by a heckler dressed up as blade of corn. But the Gore people worried when a woman who proudly displayed a full size model of a cow made from solid butter at the state fair announced she would work for the Vice-President. Was this quite the image they wanted for Mr Gore, his aides fretted?
In a few days, it will be all eyes on New Hampshire and butter cows and aggressive rams will quickly fade. "The day after the caucus, Iowa falls off the face of the earth," commented Dennis Goldford, a political scientist at Drake University.