The Week — Summit Stuff, Funnel Fun and Iowa Hype

OUT STANDING IN A GOP FIELD

The big Iowa Ag Summit is today at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, and it's attracting several Republican presidential hopefuls and a herd of media types. Good thing the staff knows how to handle plenty of nutrient.

I, sadly, won't be able to attend. I hate to miss hearing how the genetically modified soybeans of liberty may need to be watered with the blood of tyrants. But I have obtained the candidates' brand-new agriculture policy position papers, prepared just in time for the big event. Here are the titles.

(Obligatory warning: Satire)

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker - 'How Labor Unions Are Exactly Like Rootworms.”

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie - 'Crate and Barrel - Pork Gestation, Ethanol Adulation and Opening New Bridges to the Future of Agriculture.”

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum - 'Pray Away the Hay - Standing up for Traditional Values in Rural America.”

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush - 'A Tribute to John Deere and the Wisdom of Picking a Brand Name.”

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee - 'So God Made a Farmer - But Did You Hear He's Going to Make Me President?”

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry - 'The Three Pillars of Iowa Agriculture - Corn and Soybeans.”

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz - 'Shredded Obamacare - A Beneficial Mulch.”

Businessman Donald Trump -- 'You're Welcome, Iowa - How I Invented Corn.”

YOU CAN'T SPELL FUNNEL WITHOUT FUN

If you're a 19-year-old cougar, fond of raw milk and beer, but not straight-ticket voting, hoping to hand-fish for catfish, the Iowa Legislature let you down, big time.

This week marked the dreaded funnel deadline. It's the sad moment when many of the eye-catching, goofy and interesting bills that drew media attention and got people talking ‘round the proverbial water cooler get declared dead for the year. Party's over. On to the budget. Yawner City dead ahead.

So lawmakers won't be prohibiting cougar hunting, or lowering the drinking age to 19, or permitting consumption of raw milk, or banning straight-ticket voting, or allowing catfishing by hand.

What's left to do? Go home.

The speed limit on interstates will stay at boring 70, and 55 on two-lane roads. And yet, it will remain illegal to leave your car idling. Don't go fast, don't stop. Typical government. Treading on us.

But left lane-sitters get a pass. If only they would use it. Move!

Legislature, reform thyself, I say. But not a chance. A constitutional amendment that would have blessed us with biennial legislative sessions, like the good old days, is dead. Ditto with term limits.

They wouldn't even let us chase away the post-Christmas blahs by creating Statehood Day on Dec. 28. And how much nicer would drippy, dreary March 5 be if it were Constitution Day! Nope. Pay your gas tax and shadup.

OK, I guess it's easy to fault our hardworking lawmakers, solemnly tasked with separating wheat from chaff. Not easy. We should remember the Golden Rule. But forget the bill that would have required posting the Golden Rule in Iowa classrooms. The funnel did it in.

Take heart. We may still get bottle rockets.

OVER- HYPING THE RECTANGLE?

New York Times Columnist Frank Bruni has some advice for the loathed political scribblers of the land. And one piece involves our land between two rivers:

Stop hyping Iowa and New Hampshire. You would think, from our rapt (and sometimes rabid) attention to the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, that candidates face some sort of mathematical, structural imperative to wow voters there, and that these two states are nonpareil mirrors of the country.

Hardly. The importance of the contests stems chiefly from our coverage of them; the momentum that winners and runners-up carry out of them is as much our decree as it is anything organic.

Iowa is not America, just one rectangular slice of it. It's about twice as rural as the rest of the nation, more religiously conservative and much less Hispanic and black.

We're not exactly a rectangle, for starters.

Questioning whether Iowa should be first, or so dang important, is a national pastime, like posting super cryptic, mildly disturbing Facebook statuses.

I'm biased, being a native Iowan (pause for applause) and someone who actually enjoys listening to political poppycock in a Pizza Ranch. Many Iowans take this seriously, and have proved umpteen times to be much better at sizing up talent than the professional punditry.

Just ask President Fred Thompson.

Candidates with skills, decent messages and hardworking campaigns generally get rewarded here. So, really, do the people who want to change the system hope that stops happening? I doubt it. Smacking the caucuses always has been fashionable. Coming up with an alternative, much less so.

That said, I wouldn't mind terribly if some members of the national media/political industrial complex listened to Bruni and took a freaking day off once in a while. Maybe some Iowans could meet a candidate without being smacked upside the head by boom mics.

I don't mean to not be Iowa nice. Media attention is, of course, the oxygen that sustains the caucuses as a nationally important event.

But, at times, it can be tough to breathe.

It wasn't all that long ago that toe-dippers, even those of high stature and good polling, could show up in Anytown, Ioway, with a staffer or two and just a few media stragglers. Now, it's not unusual to attend a campaign stop where there are almost as many journalists as caucusing Iowans. What was once a more intimate brand of minor league baseball is now a major league ballgame. More attention, but also more packaging. And the beer, so pricey!

The crush of outside media has played a role in transforming the caucuses from a potluck with Iowans serving up the issues to a feeding frenzy seeking only a homey backdrop for a national campaign.

That's not a universal condemnation. Plenty of outside reporters do a great job covering the caucuses in a way that takes Iowans and their role seriously. They've gotten to know the territory. And Iowans still have remarkable access to candidates, especially compared to the rest of the nation.

So national media 'hype” has been a double-edged boom mic, casting a spotlight on Iowa while also transforming the event it's come to cover. We'll keep basking in the glow and doing our duty. But turning down the wattage might not be such a bad thing.