Republican Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts Gov., made a last campaign stop in a meet-and-greet at the West Des Moines Kum and Go, an area gas station stop.
So, after countless months of endless mental masturbation and verbal vomit, the political preseason is finally over. Sure, Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee will take what momentum they can to New Hampshire, but I’m not at all certain what significance, if any, Iowa will carry over the long haul. Sure, one or two fringe candidate may drop by the wayside, but what lessons have we learned thus far? There are only two that I can think of: 1) Hillary Clinton’s aura of inevitability is apparently a myth, and 2) Money can’t buy love. Ron Paul may have been able to raise a ton of cash, but it didn’t exactly translate into votes, did it? If nothing else, Iowa revealed what a long, difficult road a fringe candidate like Ron Paul (or Dennis Kucinich) will face. Paul has the funds but not the name recognition. Kucinich really doesn’t have much of either. Paul is a borderline nutjob who advocates going back to the gold standard. Kucinich has close encounters with UFOs. It’a all good….
Still and all, you have to love a state where good, God-fearing Christian White Folk can go to a gas station/convenience store called Kum & Go with a straight face. Yeah, no double entendres here, eh? Now Iowa can go back to being the obscure little backwater that no one really cares about…until the next Presidential election cycle, which will probably begin about a week after Election Day in November.
I was happy that Obama won in Iowa, because he does have the TPRS seal of approval (or, as I like to refer to it, the “kiss of death”). I was even happier that Hillary Clinton finished third. While one state is not going to make or break a campaign, it might help to remind ourselves that ‘round about this time in 2004, Howard Dean was all the rage. Things can, do, and probably will change.
In the meantime, who was the brainiac who came up with the idea of having one of the first primaries in New Hampshire? In January? Good Lord, people; it’s five degrees above zero there this morning. Shouldn’t this all be happening in Arizona or Florida?
Stay tuned….
