We Watched the Iowa Caucus Speeches--And Lived to Tell About It

The oddest thing about watching last night's Iowa caucus coverage along with the Sonics game is that we had one TV tuned to TNT, and one TV tuned to CNN--and Chuck Norris was on the latter one.

Yes, the man who reportedly counted to infinity...twice--was standing behind Mike Huckabee with his (Norris's) ex-model wife. Huckabee's own wife, who if not model material is hardly repulsive, did not appear in your picture as Huckabee spoke about "change."

So Huckabee had Chuck Norris standing behind him. He'd won.

Hillary Clinton had former president Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Wesley Clark standing behind her. She'd lost.

Somewhere the Founding Fathers were saying "and THIS is why we only let property holders vote."

It was a bit of an incongruity, Ms. Clinton talking about "change" as a cadre of former world leaders stood behind her. Chuck Norris on CNN--now that's a change.

John Edwards also wants change, but mainly he wants to protect us from "corporate greed", which is apparently a force that prevents some lady in Iowa from being able to afford health care. "Corporate greed" is a bit of an abstract concept, so we started helpfully referring to this force as "The Corporate Greed Monster".

"Edwina Phillips lives in Fuckwalader County, Iowa. She worked nights at an asbestos and snakes factory for 72 years, but then her nine children contracted leprosy. And she couldn't afford to ship them to a decent colony...because of the Corporate Greed Monster!"

Corporate Greed Monster (Artist's Rendition)

We watched a few other speeches--Mitt Romney, Joe Biden--and then it was time for the main show: Barack Obama.

Instead of having a bunch of people standing behind him, Obama had a whole crowd of people cheering, seated about 25 feet behind him. Obama looked like he was speaking at an arena, the rest of the candidates looked like they were speaking at Conference Room B. Joe Biden looked like he was speaking from the back of a van.

By this time we'd devised a drinking game, take a gulp every time you hear the word "change." (This might also work in Pioneer Square).

We expected Obama would put us over the edge, but, despite being the candidate most identified with "change", he didn't use the word as much as the other candidates. Instead--following the time-honored principle of good communication--he showed us what change would mean instead of just saying change.

Because the visual was the most striking emblem of change--we wish we could've avoided this thought but here it was: Barely forty years after segregation, here was an African-American man celebrating a presidential caucus win, in front of an almost exclusively white audience.

Mind you, he was also saying that "The people have spoken", which we think is rather a broad mandate. More accurate to say "37% of half the people who voted have spoken."

Meanwhile:

"Look, the Sonics are getting shitcanned!

"Well that's a change."