get behind me so I can love you

So, the Iowa caucuses are over. Two years ago, I was the caucus chair for my precinct. Did you know that they do caucuses in non-presidential election years? Apparently not many people knew that year--there were three people in attendance. The event was held in a large room at a retirement home, and they had a podium and microphone and the works all set up for me. The caucus attendee who was neither Mr. Banality nor I was one of our elected officials. She left after signing in and dropping off some campaign materials. Even though it was just Mr. Banality and I, I went through all of the official procedures because I'm compliant like that. Then I pretended that I was a Holiday Inn lounge singer for a while. Then we went home.

Last night I watched the returns and post-caucus speeches before going to bed, so my dreams were filled with change and hope and that cryptic thing that Mike Huckabee said about "not hating those who are in front of us, but loving those who are behind us." I admit that I hadn't heard any of Huckabee's stump speeches, and during his caucus victory speech, I was terribly distracted by the glare of Chuck Norris' ridiculously white teeth, but WTF? If you're going to create an inspirational catch phrase, it should be one that's relatively easy to figure out. That one just made me think of being in the check-out line at Hy-Vee. Don't hate on the people in front of you in line because maybe they've got something in their cart that won't scan and they'll have to do a price check on it or maybe they really, really want to use correct change and they know they have it but just can't find it right now or maybe they realize that they've forgotten to pick up fancy ice, and you know you can't have a fantastic party without the fancy ice. And you definitely need to love the people behind you in line because you have the knowledge that you'll be out of the store sooner than they will, and you pity them for that.


When I was in high school, my hometown (pop. 1400) had a slogan contest. The submissions were supposed to communicate that the town was small, friendly, and progressive (one truth in there at least). My suggestion was Mitchellville: Future Home of Today's Ideas. You know, like the sign at a construction site: "Future Home of Security State Bank." That kind of thing. I won second place, which included the prize of 48 sticks of teriyaki flavored beef jerky, 2 pounds of lemonade mix, and a gift certificate for Four Seasons Beauty Shop, which catered to "mature" women. You could smell the perm solution from the street. My point is that my high school self probably could have come up with something less confusing than "not hating those who are in front of us, but loving those who are behind us."

Oh, and the winning submission from the slogan contest? Mitchellville: Small, Friendly, Progressive. Really.