I don’t like to write the same post twice, but this was just too perfect. An email from Dwight Pelz just now:

And the winner in Iowa is…

The winner in Iowa will be the families of the men and women serving in Iraq. The winner in Iowa will be our planet, suffering from the neglect of a Republican administration. The winner in Iowa will be the children of families who cannot afford health care in George Bush’s America.

Of course, not the actual men and women serving in Iraq, since they can’t participate in Iowa:

Jason Huffman has lived in Iowa his whole life. Lately he has been watching presidential debates on the Internet, discussing what he sees with friends and relatives. But when fellow Iowans choose among presidential candidates on Thursday night, he will not be able to vote, because he is serving with the National Guard in western Afghanistan.

“Shouldn’t we at least have as much influence in this as any other citizen?” Captain Huffman wrote in an e-mail interview.

He is far from the only Iowan who will not be able to participate. Because the caucuses, held in the early evening, do not allow absentee voting, they tend to leave out nearly entire categories of voters: the infirm, soldiers on active duty, medical personnel who cannot leave their patients, parents who do not have baby sitters, restaurant employees on the dinner shift, and many others who work in retail, at gas stations and in other jobs that require evening duty.