Straw Pols Skip Iowa Staw Poll

Unable to avoid the inevitable pun, straw candidates, Mickey McCain and Rudy 'The G-Man' Guiliani, begged out of the self-declared, prestigious Iowa Straw Poll. Candidate Rudy's unofficial spokesperson told David Yupsen of the Des Moines Register, on a recent edition of Iowa Public TV's Iowa News Sorta: "Rudy isn't opposed to straw, per se, he just can't stand Iowa." Candidate Mickey in his usual direct, no-holds-barred style stared directly at Yupsen--who didn't flinch--and said, "Straw, hay, sorghum, it's all good, and I might add..." (ed note: he did add) "...there isn't a candidate in the pack, except me, who knows a bale of straw from Shinola." Shinola, of course, is the small college town in north-central Iowa where the 2007 Iowa Straw Poll traditionally is held as a kick-off to the town's Shinola Days. Shinola's mayor, Adrian Shoemaker, 19, a sophomore at Iowa State University, who became Shinola's mayor last year as part of a class assignment in her Poli Sci 102 course with Prof. Stephan Kavorkian, aka "Dr. Political Death," said, "Like, only candidate Mitt 'The Kid' Romney, like, offered to, like, attend the Straw Poll this year. Either that or, like, buy it. Whatever." A spokesman for Mitt said in an e-mail: "We're attending, oh we're attending, all right, just as soon as we can find the damn place. We've looked all over MapQuest (TM) and nothing...it's near Boise, isn't it?"

Pundits speculate that the Straw Pols feared getting the stuffing knocked of their campaigns in Iowa, but this reporter suspects that reports--unconfirmed by the FAA--of Democratic candidate Hilly swooping over Shinola on a fiery broom screaming, "Afraid of a little fire, Strawmen?" might have played a role in the decision to skip Shinola altogether. Observers say her laugh was chilling, as were the flying monkeys who handed out refrigerator magnets promoting her MySpaceNotYours.com web site.

Candidate Joey Bidentime, when reached at closing time at the Raccoon River Brewery and Grill in Des Moines said, "S**t, was I supposed to be on Iowa News Sorta? Was that today?"

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Dateline, Des Moines: Artie Azzetti, Blog Party News editor-on-the-lam