EThere's only one person Mark Gee puts a support sign for in his yard, and that's the mayor of his town, Johnston, near Des Moines. But for presidential candidates? Never. Not because he isn't confident in his decision to vote for Nikki Haley in Monday night's Iowa caucus. “But if I put out a sign, there is little room for conversation,” says the 59-year-old man. “If you don’t have one, people will talk to you.” And that’s what it’s all about for him.

Mark Gee and his son Donald were among the few at Donald Trump's campaign rally in Indianola on Sunday who did not want to vote for the former president. The father calls what they do here “learning by wandering around”. He made that his motto in life: talking to people, being out and about, seeing things with his own eyes. An approach that has often been lost on both sides in the toxic political climate in the United States.