As Iowa plays Hide-The-Caucus by continually shifting the date, presidential hopefuls continue undeterred to search for it. This week, alone, candidates Rudy The G-Man Giuliani (R-NY) and Senator Mickey McCain (R-AZ) struggled for Hawkeye hearts and/or minds by parsing the meaning of torture vis-a-vis waterboarding. The argument is mute to many Iowans who quietly believe that all presidential candidates should be tortured, "Give 'em back a little taste of what they been puttin' us through," Earl Soyrust, an independent voter from Twofourdee, Iowa, remarked after leaving a mandatory Meet Hillary Or Else event. "She calls in the middle of dinner, she calls on weekends," he lamented. "The lady just don't know when to shut up." At which point, Earl's wife, Annette, quipped, "Lot like that Biden fella." Earl nodded but said nothing more, suspecting that Clinton informants might still be in the crowd.
Democrats aren't the only ones feeling the shift in Iowa attitudes toward the political pestilence that won't leave the prairie. Giuliani recently complained while doing his Rodney Dangerfield act in Davenport: "I’m getting tortured running for president of the United States."* Rudy rolled his eyes and adjusted his tie, pausing to relish the laughter, before concluding: "That’s plain silly. That’s silly.”* The fallout was almost immediate as David Yawpson, Politics-As-Entertainment-Editor for the Des Moines Register-Picayune, wrote in his syndicated column, My Barbaric Yawp ©: "Mr. Giuliani is slowly learning that Iowans know silly. Iowans like silly. And we like it plain."
Other candidates less concerned about looking silly, immediately charged into the expanding silly gap. Senator Chris Dodd (rhymes with "God") unleashed a barrage of silly TV ads, produced by unemployed actors from Iowa's Rejection Slip Theater, (TM) in which fictitious Iowans politely note how great the senator's hair is despite the grueling demands of campaigning in a state where a haircut costs $15. **
The candidate who will probably benefit most from this "silly" shift in the run-up to the Iowa Caucus Night (whenever it is), could be Dennis Kuspinich (D-OH!), who has a long record of looking and sounding silly on the stump. In an uncharacteristic stance against silliness in politics, Kuspinich, speaking before a homeless audience in Ames, Iowa, allegedly said that once he solved all the problems facing the other candidates--war, poverty, insurance renewal forms--he'd reshape the entire public forum, "beginning," he was heard to say, "with those damn Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers (TM) ads on National Public Radio (NPR)! You know the ones, something about car owners needing a sympathetic ear...and engine shampoos!" The crowd leapt to its feet as though to leave, but, since the exit doors were locked, cheered Kuspinich on. "When elected, I promise to eliminate engine shampoos!"
This reporter missed the remainder of the stump speech, presumably drowned out by the madding crowd, although, in reality, I just couldn't hear Game 2 of the World Series and wanted to know how Mitt The Kid Glove Romney's team was doing against Tancredo's Colorado Rockettes. (TM)***
***
* actual quote taken completely out of context, and out of Davenport.
** Honest, he's really running ads about his hair. Great hair, to be certain, as BPNN has noted for months.
*** Romney 2, Tancredo 1
Dateline: Ames, Iowa, Artiie Azzetti, editor-on-the-lam, © The Blog Party News Network (BPNN), all rights remaindered, all bottles rinsed before recycling.
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