Jeff Zeleny, New York Times
In this presidential election season, there have been debates piled upon debates, a string of opportunities for candidates to be sized up alongside one another. Seldom has an audience been as important, though, as when the Democrats strode onto stage here on Sunday.
The gathering was broadcast on national television, a special edition of the ABC News program “This Week,” but the forum was viewed by the campaigns as appealing to a smaller, though much more politically important, audience: Iowa Democrats in the hall and others the campaigns believed were watching in large numbers on television.
