HOST: The winner of the Democratic Iowa caucuses in one word, Panel – NDP?
NDP: I –
HOST: Liberal?
LIBERAL: Obama.
HOST: Conservative?
CONSERVATIVE: Clinton.
HOST: Five second sound-byte answer, NDP?
NDP: I kind of liked how Edwards –
HOST: Liberal?
LIBERAL: First place gives Obama serious credibility.
HOST: Conservative?
CONSERVATIVE: Clinton didn’t get salmonella poisoning on the campaign bus.
HOST: You…don’t have high expectations of the Democrats, do you?
CONSERVATIVE: No, I really don’t.
HOST: You’re watching Pundit Panel. Who wants to start the scrum?
CONSERVATIVE: The biggest surprise, for me, was the Vagina Voters. I thought –
LIBERAL: The WHAT?
CONSERVATIVE: Women who would vote for any candidate who had a vagina. They actually split in Iowa, with many going over to the Mandingo Moms –
LIBERAL: WHAT THE HELL?
CONSERVATIVE: White women of a certain age enthralled by handsome, charismatic black men. Really, you need to read the polls more closely.
LIBERAL: I read the polls religiously, and I’ve NEVER seen those terms used –
CONSERVATIVE: Maybe you should be reading OUR polls.
NDP: Wow. You were both racially and genderly insensitive in a single five second sound byte.
CONSERVATIVE: Thank you.
HOST: NDP, you want to get into this?
NDP: Not really. See, the thing is, four days from now is the New Hampshire primary, and what happens there will make everything we talk about tonight irrelevant.
LIBERAL: Spoilsport.
CONSERVATIVE: Killjoy.
HOST: NDP makes a good point. Iowa is just one of 52 American states –
NDP: Fifty.
LIBERAL: Isn’t it forty-nine?
NDP: Fifty!
HOST: Well, reasonable people might differ on the exact number of American states, but I think we can all agree that it’s a lot. Why give the Iowa caucuses such importance?
CONSERVATIVE: It’s a matter of momentum, isn’t it? Imagine a fat woman running down a beach. I’m talking about a real fattie, here – think Oprah in her worst cake binging days, then multiply by two –
NDP: You just can’t help yourself, can you?
CONSERVATIVE: I just like to watch your face turn purple with restrained outrage. See, as the fat woman’s stomach jiggles up and down, it creates a force that actually helps her move forward. Momentum. Fat women on beaches have it. Candidates who win in the Iowa caucuses have it.
HOST: Okay, well, that’s an image that’s going to stay with me for a long time. Perhaps we should switch gears. The winner of the Republican Iowa caucuses in one word – Conservative?
CONSERVATIVE: Huckabee.
HOST: Liberal?
LIBERAL: Huckabee.
HOST: NDP?
NDP: Huckabee.
HOST: Okay, that’s boring. How about the loser? Conservative?
CONSERVATIVE: Giuliani.
HOST: Liberal?
LIBERAL: Thompson.
HOST: NDP?
NDP: The American people.
HOST: Five second sound-byte explanation. Conservative?
CONSERVATIVE: America’s Mayor is really America’s Nightmare.
HOST: Ooooooh. Gooooood! Very clever! That’s gonna be on all the late night newscasts. Liberal?
LIBERAL: Law and Order campaign more law and disorder.
HOST: Not bad. Probably a morning show quote. NDP?
NDP: Moral and intellectual pygmies when the United States needs a giant.
HOST: Hunh. Yeah. You might be quoted by a couple of left-wing blogs. Okay, who wants to start the scru –
LIBERAL: You know, Mike Hucksterbee’s emergen –
CONSERVATIVE: Excuse me?
LIBERAL: The emergence of Mike Hucksterbee shows –
CONSERVATIVE: Oh, very clever.
LIBERAL: Hey, you started the name-calling.
NDP: Oh, this is just petty.
CONSERVATIVE: It’s easy to take the moral high ground when you poll in single digits.
NDP: I could have been a labour lawyer…
HOST: Liberal, you were saying…?
LIBERAL: Huckabee’s emergence shows the limitations of a party that’s dominated by religious extremists. Romney, who was very photogenic and would have been a strong candidate, was rejected because he didn’t believe in the right god. Giuliani, who knew how to milk 9/11 for all it was worth, was rejected because his god was a thrice married cross-dresser. McCain, a justifiably celebrated war hero, was rejected because his god wasn’t fast enough to pay respects to the religious right.
NDP: I disagree.
LIBERAL: You would, wouldn’t you?
NDP: The only god all Republicans worship is Ma –
HOST: Okay, time is just about up. Last thoughts, Conservative?
CONSERVATIVE: This is what I live for.
HOST: Liberal?
LIBERAL: Making fun of the Conservative is what I live for.
HOST: NDP?
NDP: This is gonna be a long year…
HOST: Thank you, everyone, for another enlightening segment of Pundit Panel.