Odd car-not-wanting-to-start problem

[Davet1979@aol.com]

Last night, after leaving a club, I went outside (temperature - 3') and tried 
to start up my Jetta like normal - put in the key, and turned it to start 
immediately (whilst depressing the clutch).  Well, last night, I did the same 
thing as normal, but as soon as I turned the key, the entire car went dead 
(dome lights, everything), and didn't come back on for about 1 minute - and 
when it did, everything was it's normal brightness - my headlights even came 
on when I turned them on.  So, I did the same thing, and it happened again.  
The third time I tried it, I left it in the 'on' position for about 30 
seconds before starting it, and then it started right up... Any ideas?  I 
thought the days of the 'on' position actually 'warming' up the car were long 
gone.


-Dave