Just a few fun, corny tidbits before Iowa caucus voting gets under way…

A Des Moines doggie day care shop is looking after caucusers’ pets:

Jill Abbott, who owns Happy Tails in West Des Moines, which she describes as a canine “day care and boarding” facility, is offering to watch your pups while you make your voice heard at a caucus site. Here’s the offer: For $50 per animal, Abbott will watch your dog from 7 a.m. Thursday through 5:30 p.m. Friday.

Campaign groupies are ga-ga for all the tee-vee personalities in town:

Major Garrett, a congressional correspondent for FOX News Channel, was moments from doing a live shot at a John Edwards rally Wednesday night when a woman nearby began shouting at him.

“Hey, Major!” she yelled. “Hey, Major!”

Her name was Jane Hammarlund, a 55-year-old Urbandale woman, and she wanted a picture with Garrett.

Just a minute, Garrett said, until this live shot is finished.

So Hammarlund stood patiently by. She wore a red baseball cap from Fox News’ “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren” show. She snapped a quick photo of some Korean journalists. And she talked with Campaign Scene about her obsession with attending campaign events and snapping photos of famous politicians and media types.

“I am enjoying this (caucus season) to the max!” Hammarlund said.

Funnyman Iowahawk says three cheers for the caucuses. Har:

Iowa is a Microcosm of America. A one-day national presidential primary (as some analysts have recommended) would be prohibitively expensive for all but the most well-funded candidates, and make ‘dark horse’ campaigns virtually impossible. Democracy is better served by a small scale contest that allows for grassroots candidates to build momentum, while representing the country as a whole. Luckily, Iowa is an almost perfect miniaturized 1/100th scale model of the United States. For example, Northeastern iowa is filled with gritty and glitzy urban financial centers like Dubuque, “Iowa’s New York.” Iowa’s Missouri River West Coast teems with hi-tech Gay entertainment centers like Sioux City (”The San Francisco of Iowa”) and Council Bluffs (”The Malibu of Iowa”). With its fashionable supermodel nightclubs and machine gun-wielding drug lords, far southeastern Keokuk is our Miami Beach. And, in the center of it all, there is Des Moines, which is famous as “the Des Moines of Iowa.”

Iowa is also widely known as “The Diversity State,” with its vibrant Norwegian-American community and its equally vibrant German-American community, not to mention a growing population of German-Norwegian-American halfbreed mestizos. And, according to the most recent U.S. Census, Iowa has twice as many African-Americans as New Hampshire, and both of them are keenly involved in the political process.

Iowans Are Moderate. Historically, Iowa is neither strongly Republican nor Democrat, conservative nor liberal. It is near the median in state population and in the middle of the country, with an average per-capita income. Iowans speak in flat, unaccented Midwestern English, and avoid conflict and spicy foods. Iowans have a long tradition of political centrism borne of a strong libertarian desire to steer clear of government interference, along with an equally strong desire for federal subsidy checks to help better enjoy the government non-interference.

This heritage of fierce independent passive-aggressive blandness makes Iowa a valuable front line defense against political extremism from the right or left. America can trust Iowa to “weed out” any presidential candidates with non-centrist ideas, or extreme accents like “California surfer dude.” Iowa is a swing state, and candidates who want to succeed here must show they are hardcore, balls-to-the-wall moderate swingers.

“How fah is it to Hahvahd Yahd?” A long goddamn way from Cedar Rapids, pal. So start walking.

Iowans Are Smart. One area where Iowa is NOT moderate: the area of brains. Go ahead and snicker, but perennial statistics place Iowa at or near the top of standardized intelligence measures like the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and the Iowa City-based ACT college aptitude test. Yeah, I can hear all you crybaby inferior-intelligence states: “Waaaa! That’s because the refs are homers! Waaa!” Blubber about the refs all the way home on the short bus, Florida, because the IQ scoreboard says you just got PWN3D by the #1 Hawkeyes. Boo yeah!

Because of our extreme level of intelligence, Iowans are highly attuned to the critical issues of the day. You’ll find us discussing them every morning at the local coffee shop, and in the afternoon over beers at the local tavern. At night, you find us discussing the issues further with our neighbor, after he pulls our pickup out of the ditch snow bank.

This is the whole genius of our Iowa caucus system. Unlike other states where voters merely cast a ballot for a candidate, we get together with our friends and neighbors and state our case. We ask the tough questions on the crucial national issues confronting all Americans. For Democrats, there are questions like, “which candidate has the best ethanol subsidy program?” and “will they allow video poker in the local ethanol plant?” and “do they support Social Security debit cards for seniors to play the video poker machines in the local ethanol plant?” On the GOP side, caucus goers will be asking, “which candidate has the best ethanol subsidy program?” and “how about replacing those Godless high school biology textbooks with 100% corn-based bibles?”

Because of this kind of thoughtful debate and discussion, America can trust the wise no-nonsense minds of Iowa to do the hard work of winnowing through the candidates for you and the rest of America’s non-Iowa “special people.” This way you are free to run and play and sing and color until it’s time for your own state primary, which will be made much simpler thanks to us. Please remember to wear your helmet!

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