I couldn't pass up the chance to see John Edwards in Des Moines yesterday during the Labor Fest celebration at the Iowa State Fairgrounds.

I wasn't able to march in the parade from the State Capitol building to the fairgrounds, because the sun was too strong for me to carry my toddler the whole way in my backpack. At Labor Fest I ran into a friend who walked the whole parade route with her family. She said the Edwards group had a massive presence, and field organizers were getting lots of support cards signed along the way.

As I have written before here and here, parades are a great opportunity for campaign staff and volunteers to identify supporters and get them signed up.

As you probably read on the blogs yesterday, John Edwards was in Pittsburgh on the morning of Labor Day to receive the steelworkers' union endorsement. I was concerned about whether he'd be able to fly to Des Moines in time for the parade and Labor Fest appearance, but it turned out to be no problem. The parade itself was a bit delayed because of a train crossing at one point along the route anyway.

When I got to the fairgrounds, I found out which entrance Edwards was expected to use and planted myself there. But before too long, my 21-month-old let me know that if I wanted him to stay happy in my backpack, I was going to have to move around. We chatted with people at several of the booths set up in the hall, including the Sierra Club blue/green alliance people and Patty Link, a candidate for Des Moines School Board who is married to Jeff Link.

My toddler's favorite booth was Iowans for Sensible Priorities, the group lobbying for reducing the Pentagon budget to spend more on more pressing needs. They have this fun wheel for people to spin as a game:

They hand out pens and car magnets and fans with the same graphic. We stood there for a while watching people spin the wheel, then rushed back to the entrance, because it seemed that someone important was about to come in to the building. It turned out to be Congressman Leonard Boswell:

Boswell's voting record has disappointed me many times, and the gang at Open Left recently named him as one of the "Bush dogs" progressives need to challenge.

I do sense, though, that support for Boswell is rock-solid among the rank and file Democrats in our district who are not active in the environmental movement or the blogging world. Leonard was in his element yesterday. Given that Iowa is likely to lose one of its five Congressional districts after the 2010 census, I think it makes no sense to spend our energy on a primary challenge to Boswell. He is likely to retire before the 2012 election.

After Boswell's entrance toddlerdesmoinesdem and I kept making the rounds until tv camera crews made it obvious that John Edwards was close by. We got back to the entrance in time to catch this shot

before Edwards was mobbed by supporters on the way to the podium.

As you can imagine, it was a very friendly crowd for him, and he got a great introduction from local members of the steelworkers' union, standing behind him on the platform in the gold-colored shirts:

Why didn't I ask Mr. desmoinesdem how to zoom this camera before we set off for this event? Usually I am not the family photographer.

In any event, Edwards got huge cheers during the shortened version of his stump speech, especially when he talked about key elements of his universal health care plan and his views on trade policy (he mentioned that he had opposed NAFTA and CAFTA).

After that toddlerdesmoinesdem started getting restless, so I let him down from the backpack and he immediately headed back for that Sensible Priorities wheel. The acoustics were not great in that part of the room, so I missed parts of Edwards' speech toward the end. I did not catch whether he mentioned Bush's "open highways initiative", which he blasted in this news release yesterday.

After the speech, campaign staff were busy getting supporter cards signed in the room. Talk about easy pickings!

We stayed for a while after Edwards spoke, chatting with friends and field organizers. A woman I know who is active with Iowa AFSCME told me they have no idea if and when an endorsement is coming. She hears that on a national level AFSCME is getting pulled in many directions and hasn't decided yet what to do. I think most people are expecting Hillary Clinton to get that endorsement, but there is heavy support for Edwards and Obama within parts of AFSCME too. They may decline to endorse.

Incidentally, the Clinton campaign had a much larger presence at Labor Fest than Obama did, which isn't surprising, because Hillary and Bill were scheduled to come to the fairgrounds about an hour or so after Edwards. I would have stayed to hear them, but toddlerdesmoinesdem was past due on his nap and let me know that he was ready to leave the building.