"Dennis Kucinich ... might have something to say about who's the "populist" candidate "giving voice to voters' frustrations."

Not in the liberal parts of Iowa, anyway. Kucinich got fairly substantial support from Iowa's left four years ago, in a Eugene Debs "who do you really want in office" sort of way. This year, his support is practically nonexistent. It's split between Edwards and Obama, with the remainder going to Richardson or Biden, Richardson growing in strength and Biden slowly fading. Those who never regretted supporting Kerry like Clinton, which still makes her a solid contender.

In Iowa, which is more of a national bellwether than the national polls themselves, the top three candidates are neck and neck. Clinton and Obama have gained on Edwards, but not passed him. Kucinich has never left Cleveland.

Most important new wild card issue: progressives' disgust with the Congressional Democrats for caving in on the new surveillance bill. Should work in Edwards' favor, but we'll see.

The only surprise about Huckleberry's victory is that it wasn't Brownback or Tancredo. He didn't win anyway, of course; he only won because the guy everyone knew would win didn't win by the predicted eight-to-one margin, so he's the loser and the guy those same people thought would finish sixth is the winner, though in any real race he'd get a pat on the back and a nice-try-you-loser.

So Huck, who has spent more time in Iowa in the last year than any non-Iowan but John Edwards, charmed the crowd that came to Ames. In reality, the full population of Ames, where the mayor, a majority of the City Council and all but two county officials are Democrats, is big on Barack Obama, with Edwards a close second and Richardson an affectionate third, but we're only dealing with the Huck-lovers who were bussed in for the Straw Poll. His victory says more about the state of the Iowa Republican party than about Iowa, and what it says is not good.

Only half as many Iowa Republicans bothered to vote in the Straw Poll as in 2000, a statistic mentioned and then passed over by most analysts. In 2000 Iowa Republicans were pretty evenly split between old-line moderates and born-again, fire-breathing rightwingers. 2000 featured candidates like Lamar Alexander, Elizabeth Dole and the original John McCain, in addition to GWB. Eight years later, two groups, Iowans for Tax Relief, the group with the Fair Tax ferris wheel, and a coalition of far right fundamentalists, control the party. Anybody to the left of James Dobson had better seek different territory, as McCain and Giuliani wisely did, or, as Romney chose to do, reinvent yourself from a neoliberal Massachusettsan to a born-again Mormon from Michigan.

So Huck is right, "Freebird," by the same collection of racist Southern punks who gave us "Sweet Home Alabama" ("I hope Neil Young will remember/Southern Man don't need him around, anyhow") probably did have something to do with it. The right gave up on Bush over a year ago, but instead of running against him or trying to redeem his sins, they run from a fantasy world where the ghost of Bill Clinton is still president somehow, and his successors are his haughty, bitchy wife and an uppity negro who thinks he's good enough to sit at the white folks' table. They can't use gender or race against John Edwards, so they've tried to cast him as gay since he doesn't go to Supercuts. Bill Richardson is Hispanic, though he doesn't look it; if they could make a case for Biden or Dodd as a closet Muslim, they'd have the race sewed up. But Obama does have that funny name, and who knows what those people really think.

Once they've dispatched these traitors to the vision of our Founding Fathers, the way will be open for flat (read no) taxes and publicly funded (through tithing) church schools telling us of that glorious era six thousand years ago when Adam and Eve camped peacefully with the dinosaurs. The only discordant sounds heard in the land will be those of falling bridges and the occasional proud sob from a relative of one of the casualties of the constant state of war we so sadly find ourselves in.

No, it's not funny; they're serious. The only bright spot is that they've managed to alienate so many former Republicans that they've lost control of both houses of the Legislature, the Governorship, and all state offices except Auditor and Secretary of Agriculture. (That's how you know it's Iowa, they elect a Secretary of Agriculture.) If the Democrats can control the well-known penchant for corruption on the part of some of them (it's not for nothing that Des Moines Democrats' own name for their organization is "La Machina"), they may be in power for a good long time.

If you want a saner take on Iowa, and Midwest, politics than the one provided by the Straw Poll, may I suggest a journalistic trip to Tom Harkin's Annual Steak Fry, in Indianola September 16. There will be six relatively sane Presidential candidates (Obama was the only one last year) and a more hopeful, less mordant, vision of the future, for Iowa and the country.

I don't mind the Fair, but my wife hates it.

Favorite question: Kum & Go. Who outside of Iowa would have guessed that? A classic what- were-they-thinking, and the first doubletake people do when they arrive. Successful enough, though, that the family was able to back Kum & Go Jr. (former Iowa House Majority Leader) for a Congressional race last fall. He lost, but hasn't gone.

Most telling question: Who was in the lead this time four years ago? Lieberman. Is Hillary the new Joe? The resemblances are disturbing.