Whole lotta pork

There are just too many easy jokes to make about John McCain visiting the record Iowa hawg. Watch the video.

• I thought he was against earmarks.
  
• If McCain has trouble glad-handing the pig farmer - and he does - how's he going to win?
• In the background, someone says incredulously, "Only four years?" (Age of the hog.)
• CNN labels the story "McCain meets Iowa's big boar". Read that out loud. Ouch.
• I wonder what McCain's $500 shoes have on them now.
• Cindy plays along gamely at first, but you can see her expression fade. She must be thinking, "If I have to smile in the middle of this stench, you better win the goddamn White House for me."
• The hog, all along, is unmoved.

This is retail politics. It's hard, it's dirty, you meet people who aren't interested but you can't look bored, and it takes all day. I know, I was out today driving a State Rep candidate around to meet voters in her primary opponent's home town this afternoon. It takes lots of energy to be on stage all the time, and I'm definitely glad not to be doing it myself this time.

If you spent enough time following any candidate with a video camera, you'd find frames to lampoon. McCain's no different in that. Yes, most of us reflexively despise politicians, and they often give us good reason to, but it bears noting that they put huge effort into meeting us and talking to us and that they all should get credit for that.