800 Words: I am an Iowan (and so can you)

For the purposes of this blogpost, I, Evan Tucker, am 47 years old. I’m blond and almost totally bald, so I wear a giant blonde toupee with more hair than I ever had in real life. I’m a foot taller than I am currently and a hundred-fifty pounds heavier. I smoke two packs a day, live on a steady diet of cheeseburgers and corn whiskey, and possess a mighty pot belly thrice the size of my chest cavity (rather than the twice it already is). Every Sunday morning, I pile my five kids into our family-size SUV and drive them three-and-a-half hours to a Pentecostal Megachurch in Western Missouri so that I can wrest them free of the evil Catholic and Methodist influences which my ex-wife and her husband lays on them for five days every week. I work in the back office of an ethanol and ethanol accessories store somewhere around the town square of Mount Ayre in Ringgold County, somewhere deep into Southern Iowa. I drive an hour and a half to work in my pickup truck and regularly enter my beard in facial hair competitions. I haven’t seen a doctor in three years, because the last time he saw me he told me I was in grave danger of a heart attack. I watch sports at least eight hours every day, but I haven’t had the energy to play any in roughly fifteen years, and I routinely feel pins and needle pains throughout the left side of my upper body. Even so, for all I can tell, my health is perfect.

I get out of the car. Waiting for me is Mitt Romney, as he does at least once a week in my parking lot. He follows me as he does every time, awaiting a chance to convince me that he's the perfect candidate for me, the perfect Iowan.

Mitt Romney: Sir or Madame, my Ringgold County primer sheet informs me that you must be a White Male or Female, probably age 18-49 who regularly attends church, loves University of Iowa Football and whose last name is likely to be Smith.

Evan: I’m a couple of those things.

Mitt: Well you can be assured Mr or Mrs Smith that we both love and fear the same God. or Gods if you happen to be Catholic, that I want to lower taxes for your boss’s boss so that he won’t fire you, and that I’ve been a Hawkeye fan since I was a year old.

Evan: Well, you are from Massechussets, Michigan, California, and Utah simultanously. But who couldn’t love the Hawkeyes?

(Rick Santorum is waiting for me at the door to the store. This is the first time we’ve met.)

Rick Santorum: Hello Evan! In light of the fact that you are a Pentacostal, I can assure you beyond reasonable doubt that you’ll go to Hell. In spite of this, I know that we believe in many of the same things - particularly that the right to privacy does not exist and that your sister-in-law is a Baptist whore. And since we both know that you’ll be fired by next January, I would strongly advise you to vote for me so that as your President I can find you a new job that pays you lower than the minimum wage I plan on abolishing so that I might make your time on Earth a sweeter one than the breads of affliction which await you in eternal perdition.

Evan: This makes a certain degree of sense.

(Evan, Mitt and Rick walk into the store, only to find Ron Paul waiting there)

Ron Paul: Don’t you wish these jerkoffs would get the fuck out of here and just leave you be?

Mitt: You’re here too Ron.

Ron Paul: Just to save this poor soul from the hands of wicked people like you and Rick who would do him ill. The poor guy can make his own decisions.

Rick: Not if he doesn’t have a job.

Ron: The market will give him a job, it performs many miracles. If every one of them were written down, even the whole world would not have room for the books that are written.

Evan: Isn’t that from John 21:25 except in reference to Jesus?

Rick: Aren’t John and Jesus characters from the Bible?

Ron: The market is the light of the world. Who ever follows its dictates will never walk in darkness.

Mitt: Do you have some polling numbers on that statement?

Evan: Wait. Why do you believe so fervently in the free market Mr. Paul?

Ron: Because like all of you, I am not particularly fond of persons of color.

(long silence)

Mitt:...well....that was unexpected...

Ron: We should be free to conduct ourselves in any way we see fit. Particularly when it comes to discriminating against minorities.

Rick: Using the free market as a way to oppress minorities. Thats...that’s...genius! Why did I never think of that?!

Ron: Are you going to change your platform now?

Rick: No thanks. I just like repression too much.

Mitt: Hold on, I gotta make a call..... Hey Tagg, can you get me a data sampling on using the Free Market as a way to discriminate against people. I want samplings of self-identified Protestants, Catholics, and Libertarians. Then I want sub-samplings on whom they’d most like to discriminate against.

(Enter Newt Gingrich)

Newt Gingrich: Mr. Tucker, I know exactly what these guys have said to you. I’ve heard them say it a million times before. Frankly, I came up with every one of their ideas before they did and before this paragraph is over I’ll have another half dozen bad ideas you’ll love. I’d have even enacted them too if I couldn’t have skimmed so many millions of dollars by letting America stay a decent country for people we can’t stand.

Mitt: (holding up camera phone) Yes. That will work very nicely for the negative campaign ad against you we’re introducing in an hour.

Newt: (face goes red) Why do you hate America Mitt???!!!!

Mitt: It’s not personal Newt, this is strictly business.

Newt: Just you wait. I was dead, but I shall reign forever and ever!

Evan: Isn’t that from the Book of Revelations about Jesus?

Newt: No, it’s Handel’s Messiah. I heard my wife singing it in the shower yesterday.

Rick: Is Messiah a book in the Bible?

(Enter Rick Perry. Rather than shake my hand, he takes a charred steak out of his pocket),

Rick Perry: Hey buddy, have a free steak, cuz I’m folksy. Here’s some Tabasco sauce (takes it out of his other pocket) and I’ve actually got a free pair of boots out back from the same cow.

Rick S.: I’m surprised you’re still out here.

Rick P: Well, you know what they say. You can lead a cow to wa....wait, how does it go?

Mitt: I can’t believe I was scared of you.

Rick P.: You should be. I’m a regular guy, don’t lie Evan, you want a President just as dumb as you. So here are some buzzwords I wrote on my hand: Freedom! Victory! Change! Flat Tax! Washington Corruption! Founding Fathers! Life! Liberty! Pursu...oh come on I can’t forget another word, that would just be cliche.

(enter Evan’s boss.)

Boss: Hey Evan, Mitt, Rick, Ron, Newt, Rick.

All: How’s it going Mordechai?

Boss: So Evan, who are you going to vote for?

Evan: Actually I’m a Democrat. My dad’s kinda senile and he’s from Missouri. So if I ever turned Republican he’d drop dead of a heart attack because he thinks the Draft George Wallace movement will start gaining traction any day now.

(enter Herman Cain)

Herman: Did I hear someone mention a Wallace supporter?