Great article Eli. A very good read.

Unfortunately, there's a sentence missing from the print version. In the flip between pages this got cut: "win the Iowa caucuses. On the drive home, the Yale volunteer told me, they were crying."

Oh no! I haven't seen the paper version yet, but if true, that's too bad.

Oh well. Thanks for the nice words, gnossos. Glad you liked the story, and happy that you were able to read it in full online.

Very nice article, Eli. Your week in Iowa was very worth it, methinks.

Dug the feature, Eli. I was fascinated by the description of the post-caucus "emptiness" in Des Moines.

uh, Eli, no; the "penis of the plains" is the designated nickname for the Nebraska State Capitol building, the home of the countries ONLY unicameral...if those motherfucking Iowans are trying to claim that name for this assugly building, then we WILL storm Council Bluffs and burn it to the ground, (which shouldn't be difficult, as it's all crack houses and porn stores).

@5:

I'm afraid there are about fifteen penises in the plains. Every time a skyscraper goes up seemingly in the middle of nowhere, it's christened by the locals as a "penis in the plains." As well as that building in Des Moines and the Nebraska capitol building in Lincoln, my introduction to this phenomenon is a building in the Chicago suburbs ("DuPage County's only skyscraper: a penis in the plains") - a building that has much more... ah... girth, than the Nebraska state capitol. I've heard tales of at least twelve more scattered across Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, and Indiana.

I think the Nebraska state capitol pre-dates them all; it's real Deco.

and everyone knows, length is much more impressive than girth.

Not to mention the Nebraska state capitol has that little spurt coming out of the top.