Madeline Stowe Gets Out the Vote for Edwards

By Sridhar Pappu

DES MOINES -- If there's a sign that Iowa has been completely saturated with celebrities shilling for candidates, watching Madeline Stowe calling people as part of a John Edwards phone bank at the United Steelworkers Local 164 in Des Moines with her iPhone must be it.

"We've completely run out of phones so I had to use this," Stowe said between calls on Monday night .

Stowe was speaking moments before Edwards and his wife Elizabeth stopped in to visit as part of their "36-hour marathon for the Middle Class."

Stowe, who most recently starred in the NBC drama "Raines," was in full cold-weather gear with snow boots and black leggings beneath her skirt. Already on her second tour in Iowa, she said she had visited 50 homes today, canvassing door-to-door.

"The reaction was mixed," Stowe said when asked about impressions when people met her at the door. "Some people started screaming and calling their husbands, some didn't say anything. Some people wanted to sit down over coffee."

Also making an appearance at the union phone bank was Jean Smart, best known for her part on "Designing Women." Smart, too, had done her share of heavy lifting for Edwards -- visiting Boone, Perry, Newton and Indianola for the candidate. She plans on staying through the caucus and traveling with the Edwardses to New Hampshire on Friday.

But she'll have to carry on having endured, um, great injury.

"I was baking biscuits at my sister's house and I burned the hell out of my finger," Smart said, showing off her pink badge of honor. "All she had were Barbie Band-Aids."