...or are elections only fun when the gloves come off?

OK now it gets interesting.

Prior to the Iowa caucuses there was only an amorphous mass of Democrats bickering among themselves and an amorphous pile of Republicans doing the same. Now we have winners and, more importantly, losers.

No one, least of all me, wants their presidential candidates chosen by the good people of Iowa. Were these contests organized to choose the best ear of corn or the most attractive livestock (insert your own joke here!) Iowa is as good a place as any for a decision. When, however, we are trying to determine who is the most qualified candidate to un-f**k America after the horror of George The Lesser, Iowans are a little too evangelical, rural and white for the task.

That said, at least the caucuses provide some measurable test as to how candidates are being received by a block of voters. For this we are indebted to the hardy souls of the Hawkeye State. While the rest of us are fed a steady stream of ads for E.D. and phone companies, the brave men and women of Iowa have endured the endless blather of almost twenty supplicants for president. The good news for Iowa is that, for the rest of this election, and for the next four years, they will be completely ignored.

So what have the people of Iowa given us?

First there is the twisted wreck of what once was the Hillary Bandwagon. This is what happens when you stay too long at the fair...especially the Iowa State Fair. When your campaign lasts longer than the run of Les Miz, people get sick of you. Ideas that looked good to folks at the beginning start to fade with age. A return to the peaceful, prosperous days of the Clinton presidency starts to look like more of the dynastic thinking that gave us George the not-so-great. Hillary's eight years of experience in the White House reminds us that she spent much of the time defending her husband from charges of diddling the help. That sort of experience might be useful if she were being considered for a role on Desperate Housewives but hopefully, America is looking for more.

In contrast, Barak Obama is a breath of fresh air. He's smooth, smart and seemingly without guile. He has actually been able to avoid closeted skeletons by revealing all his "secrets" at once. By refusing to "go negative" he has made it practically impossible for the Clinton camp to attack him without appearing Rove-esque. Aside from holding the door for her, Obama barely acknowledges that Hillary is even around. He is proving that you can be smart and still be likable. Remember that George Bush presented himself as folksy but competent. Turns out he was neither. Hil is in trouble and she knows it. If she loses New Hampshire her new job will be her old job: making sure Bill's zipper is up.

Mike Huckabee is Barak with a Bible. Like Obama, he represents some hope for the future rather than more of the same. Apparently even Republicans are gagging on the current band of felons in the White House. No one can spot a swine like an Iowan and they certainly identified the oinkers in both parties. Speaking of sleeping in the sty,even the affable John McCain could not overcome his new-found subservience to the will of the current administration. The message of November 2006 is still clear...we don't like the way Congress is behaving and we aren't interested in elevating anyone from that partisan mess to a higher office.

Mitt Romney, whose positions on the issues is printed on an Etch-a-Sketch, looks a little too blow-dried for the simple people of the Midwest. It's hard to connect with a guy who looks like one of the Brooks Bros. at five in the morning. Mitt was pro-choice in Massachusetts and the Christian Right isn't going to let him weasel out of that position just because he's on the other side of the Mississippi. Gov. Romney may be joining Hillary at the "What Went Wrong Cafe" come Wednesday.

We are still far from finished with this process. There's still Rudy "I swear I didn't know she was my cousin" Guiliani. His best hope is that 1) Romney and Huckabee shoot each other in New Hampshire and, 2) the rest of the country forgets about his three marriages, Bernie Kerik and his position on practically everything.

In any event, like we say in the pool room, there's a lot of green between here and there.