I drove to Iowa for the holidays, staying with my dad's family on their farm, north of Marshalltown, for five days. I checked on the schedule of candidates appearences, but there was nothing nearby when I was there, aside from a Fred Thompson thing about an hour and a half away. Which I didn't go to. We took a lot of small roads to go here and there, into different towns, and I was surprised by the lack of political signs. Considering how much I hear about Iowa, I thought the landscape would be a signage battleground.
Maybe Des Moines is more the focal point of the campaigns. I saw a total of two political signs in Iowa. One, at an intersection way out in the country, was a massive handmade Ron Paul sign, about 6 feet tall, with phone numbers and slogans on it. Neatly stenciled. The other sign was also handmade, now that I think about it, and very large. It was a wood or plastic plaque in the shape of Iowa, hung high up on the side of a large barn that faced the road, reading "Stay at Home Hillary"
We didn't watch that much TV, just a few football games and the news, but there were less political ads than I thought. I was hoping to catch a bunch of rad Guiliani-loves-farmers ads, but again, the only ads I saw were Ron Paul. I saw the same one about four times while I was in Iowa: a picture of the Constitution next to his head and him talking. The first time one came on my mom said "Who's that?", and I told her. My sister also had no idea who he was. I sort of envy them, having better things to do than watching all of those debates.
My grandfather, whose house we were staying at, is a serious Republican. I was in Iowa during 2004 and we argued a lot. It created a lot of pointless tension. I didn't feel like it at all this time, and he didn't bring up anything political, and neither did anyone else, so I happily let it go. I did find out that he had a slight grudge against Roosevelt because during the New Deal his family was poor but weren't eligible for a key subsidy due to the fact that they owned their own home.
The grandparents and aunts and uncles all mentioned being plagued by robocalls with questions.
We had dinner one night with some cousins, one of whom, about my age, was going back to Iraq soon. He was setting up telecommunications. His dad was happy about how the situation was improving and seemed to think the army was making a positive difference.
On our way out of town on Sunday we encouraged our grandparents to skip church and come have lunch with us at Maid-Rite in Marshalltown (not the one Hillary tipped/no-tipped at, that was nearby in Toldeo I think). Amazingly, they did, I didn't know they were allowed to skip church. I had pie and coffee because I'm a vegetarian, everyone else had burgers and shakes and coffee. My sister accidentally dumped her milkshake all over the counter and the waitress nicely wiped it up. My grandfather paid for us all and left no tip. Well, to be exact, he said "Keep the change," which was 69 cents.