Iowa’s nickname of the “Hawkeye” state is thought to either have been first applied by a newspaper writer as a tribute to Chief Blackhawk, or some think it was taken from the name of the scout, Hawkeye, in James Fenimore Cooper’s “The Last of the Mohicans.”
Those things have, for some reason, evolved into what the word has come to symbolize today – a bird of prey. The transformation of the meaning of the word must have started around the time politicians arrived for the first Iowa caucus.
I don’t live in Iowa, but if I did, on the night of the caucus, my backyard would resemble the streets of Paris on Bastille Day, minus the berets and snobby pacifism. Not because my candidate may have won, but because the weasels, buffoons, slimeballs, glad-handing thieves and short-sellers of soul stock on the trading floor of hell would be about to leave.
Congratulations, Iowa! With the 2004 caucus out of the way, your state’s pollution rate will drop immensely. Now hurry up and get Dennis Kucinich on the plane before he finds a wife there and buys property in Cedar Rapids.
Every four years, these “birds of prey” dot the Iowa landscape with plops roughly the size and consistency of – well, themselves. If you try to avoid the plops, you quickly learn that’s not possible – they splatter big time. There aren’t nearly enough back issues of the Des Moines Register to line the political birdcage into which the entire state is transformed early every election year, so you just have to put up with the mess for a while.
Compounding the misery for Iowans this year were campaign visits from Rob Reiner and Martin Sheen. “Meathead,” as he is known to many, was campaigning for Howard Dean. So was Reiner.
These are just the kind of flap-jawed, ivory-towered know-betters that people move to Iowa to get away from, aren’t they? Tinsel-town pests with egos as big as the “Hollywood” sign – and IQs of as many letters – can be funny, but when they start following you around, it just gets plain irritating. I wasn’t going to go to their next movie anyway, but, now, I’m not going to go twice.
Despite the overall annoyance of the visiting presidential wannabes, if you can pay attention to them long enough without drooling your way through a blank stare like a lobotomized raccoon, you can learn something.
In the quest for Iowa, Wesley Clark taught us one of the reason’s he’s called “General” – because the title of “specific” certainly doesn’t apply. Lieberman, somehow, always ends up giving us reasons to vote for Bush. We learned that John Kerry’s hair loses perk and drops whenever his poll numbers do, and John Edwards taught us … I’ll have to get back to you on that one.
Howard Dean showed us that he debates sort of like Earl Weaver used to argue with umpires, and that he’ll try to win the votes of the Al Sharpton contingency by promising to, if elected, conduct an FBI manhunt to find the one minority in Vermont and make him a Cabinet member.
We also learned that Dick Gephardt may have done irreparable harm to Iowa’s dairy industry. Telling Iowans ad nauseam that his father was a milkman has caused half the state to become lactose intolerant. One positive sign for the Missouri congressman was that Michael Bolton showed up at a Gephardt rally, and his endorsement speech, surprisingly enough, wasn’t a remake of somebody else’s endorsement speech.
The overall collection of Democratic candidates on display at the final debate even made me say a sentence I never thought would be uttered in my house: “Carol Moseley Braun is so above all this!” Oddly enough, she agreed, and dropped out within days.
It must have been a strange feeling for you Iowa residents. These last few months have been a time when your lives were as stressful as they’ve ever been due to constant confusion and bombardment by conflicting messages. In addition, you’ve been subjected to ongoing attempts to frighten you by telling you we’ve got a maniacal president who’s going to get us all killed, and your televisions have been filled with rage and outright lies.
The cause of this? A group of politicians who claim they can ease your stress level, make you feel more secure, and clean up the airwaves.
Watch out, New Hampshire. That big bird of prey has now been spotted flying in your direction, and it’s been eating plenty of corn and knocking back prune juice like there’s no tomorrow.
For some of them, thankfully, there isn’t.
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