Susie McCauley will brave a Midwest freeze today, so cold that it stings the skin, and head to the Democratic caucuses knowing who she wants to be the next president. Before the night is out, however, she will probably face disappointment and a dilemma.

Her candidate is Bill Richardson, whose vote in many precincts tonight is expected to fall short of the 15 per cent threshold. Under caucus rules, his supporters are then encouraged to “realign” behind more popular contenders.

So who is her second choice? “Definitely not Hillary Clinton,” Mrs McCauley, 59, says. “She can’t bring the country together – it’s just because of who she is.”

Mr Richardson’s supporters had gathered for a meeting with the easygoing New Mexico Governor in Winterset, Madison County, where the wooden bridges that once provided the setting for a steamy Hollywood romance are now shrouded in ice.

A race like a crackpot Dynasty

The contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton matches any fiction

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There is little love, or warmth, to be found for Mrs Clinton. Not a single Richardson voter among about a dozen interviewed by The Times said that they would switch to the former First Lady in the realignment round. Tom Roach, an electrician and local union activist, explained: “We don’t want to see the Clinton dynasty carrying on.”

Polls bear out such snapshots, showing that the second preference for supporters of Mr Richardson, as well as the likes of Joe Biden, Chris Dodd and Dennis Kucinich, skew significantly towards Barack Obama or John Edwards – with whom Mrs Clinton is locked in the tightest of fights.

Tonight it is the redistributed votes of “nonviable” candidates, worth possibly 10 per cent or more of the total, that may well settle the contest. That is one of the chief problems for Mrs Clinton’s Iowa state director, Teresa Vilmain, who confirmed yesterday that there had been discussions with other campaigns about picking up their realigned support. “Everybody is talking to everybody,” she said.

Mr Richardson has been studiously polite to Mrs Clinton throughout the campaign, possibly because he has ambitions to be her vice-presidential nominee. He still hopes to top the second tier of candidates tonight but his campaign voter cards being distributed in Winterset even got the date of the caucus wrong, asking Iowans to back him “on January 14”.

Asked what advice supporters are being given if he fails to make the first-round threshold, he shakes his head sadly, saying: “I’m not going to tell them what to do.”

Four years ago Mr Kucinich, a fringe left-wing candidate, told his caucus-goers to back Mr Edwards, possibly helping him to his surprise second place. This week Mr Kucinich announced that if, or when, he fails the viability test, his tiny band of supporters should switch to Mr Obama.

Mrs Clinton’s second-choice problem reflects her status as a polarising political figure for the electorate. Although she has devoted support among women and Democrat voters still loyal to her husband’s presidency, she is also loathed by much of the American public.

Mr Obama, who gets strong support in Iowa from independent, Republican and first-time voters, has again underlined his claim to be the most likely to win November’s general election contest against a Republican nominee. “I am the only Democratic candidate who is beating every single one of them,” he said yesterday at another packed and excited rally. “Fred, Mitt, Mike, Rudy, John – I beat them all.”

Later yesterday he made another foray into foreign policy – territory that has often proved treacherous for him – as he pleaded for peace in Kenya, the birthplace of his father.

His rival, Mr Edwards, is on what he calls a “76hour marathon” bus ride across Iowa, where he is making his final appeals to caucus-goers. On Tuesday night, visiting a steelworkers’ union hall in Des Moines, he shouted: “I can tell you I haven’t had so much fun in my life.” He then jumped back on his bus to drive through the night, east towards towns along the Mississippi River. However, in darkness yesterday morning, his “Main Street Express” vehicle had broken down at a service station.

Mrs Clinton last night broadcast a two-minute advertisement on local TV stations, saying: “After all the town hall meetings, the pies and the coffee, it comes down to this: Who is ready to be president and ready to begin solving the big challenges from Day 1? If you stand with me for one night, I will stand up for you every day as president.”

She later made a surprise television appearance on the Late Night with David Letterman show, which was being broadcast for the first time since a writers’ strike began.

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