Heading Down the Highway

I drove for 13 hours yesterday to get from my home near Lansing, Michigan, to my parents’ spacious condo in what’s called a “golf cart community” 40 miles south of Atlanta, Georgia.

All the way down I tried to convince myself that the trip was a good thing (I’d get to see my parents and their two cool golden retrievers again) but I had started missing Anita and the kids before my car left our subdivision and my sadness only grew. I tried to distract myself by finding something on the radio that didn’t remind me of the kids but it was challenging (I never realized how prominent music is in my household). Then, driving through Kentucky and Tennessee, all I could find on the radio was classic rock, people praising Jesus and conservative commentators like Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin declaring that Barack Obama is un-American and bad for the soul and it’s urgent and essential that he be defeated in order to preserve all that is good and just and great about this country.

No wonder everything’s so messed up. If all I heard on the radio were promises that Jesus will help me achieve my weight loss goals and shrill declarations that Obama is Satan who wants to contaminate our water supply, run every last job creator out of town on a rail and give the keys to the White House to his Muslim overlords, I’d bring a skewed sense of reality into the voting booth too.

Santorum and Romney

I kept trying to find public radio stations so I could listen to Robert Siegel discuss yesterday’s Iowa caucus machinations as if they really mattered and tell listeners the same thing over and over again in that pleasant voice of his. Several hours into the drive I found a strong Atlanta station that was broadcasting the pompous CNN crew – Wolf Blitzer, James Carville, David Gergen, Candy Crowley, Anderson Cooper, Mary “I’m more arrogant than Martha Stewart, Oprah Winfrey and Donald Trump combined” Matalin, and others – discussing the Mitt Romney/Rick Santorum horse race as if it were actually news instead of a meaningless charade that doesn’t award actual convention delegates but simply gives meaningless “bragging rights” to the victor.

I never understood why Iowa, which has been first in picking presidential contenders since 1972, receives such respect and attention. Its largest city, Des Moines, is home to fewer than 204,000 residents; Atlanta has 420,000 and Detroit has 714,000. The Hawkeye State – which is 95 percent white, ranks 30th in population (Michigan’s population is 9.8 million; Iowa’s is just over three million) and is the birthplace of Herbert Hoover, the 31st president who presided over the Great Depression and is ranked by most historians near the bottom of the list of successful Oval Office occupants – is about as relevant to the world at large as Tom Arnold (Roseanne Barr’s buffoonish ex-husband) and Frodo Baggins (aka actor Elijah Wood), who were born there.

I know how they feel

I’ve also never understood why the Iowa caucuses are deemed so newsworthy by the talking heads. Mike Huckabee won the “bragging rights” in 2008; John McCain, who eventually became the GOP nominee, came in fourth. Tom Harkin won the Iowa causes in 1992 – the year that Bubba Clinton became president. About the only real result of last night’s dog and pony show is that Rick Perry’s heading back to Texas and Michele Bachmann’s returning to whatever mental institution she calls home. I am appreciative to Iowa Republicans for that.

I miss my family more than a salmon misses water and focusing on Mitt Romney’s eight-vote lead over Rick Santorum in yesterday’s meaningless political contest isn’t making me feel any better.

Sources: United States Census, Huffington Post.