Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Who Let The Dogs Out?

Our evening escapade tonight did not go as planned. After spending most of the day enjoying the hospitality of the Iowa Soybean Association in Ankeny, IA, we hurried back to the farmstead and ate dinner quickly, determined to stay on schedule. We then packed up the reliable Roadmaster and departed for Iowa Falls once more to view a public debate between Reps. Sweeney and Grassley. We were mistakenly informed that the debate would start at 7 pm; however, it actually began at 6 pm.

Upon arriving, we viewed two women parked outside of the auditorium of Ellsworth Community College, sporting "Dogs Against Sweeney" signs. Apparently, an inconsequential minority of the Hardin County electorate is currently displeased with current regulations concerning "puppy mills." I am not entirely sure why they were protesting Rep. Sweeney specifically, since her opponent has no qualms with current regulations either. As we hurriedly walked towards the entrance of the auditorium, the puppy protesters tried to approach us - we brushed them off and headed inside.
We walked in the auditorium (a few minutes past seven) and quickly took some seats. At this point we presumed that we had arrived only five minutes late. Coincidentally, the two representatives were fielding questions about regulations in puppy mills. Not two minutes later, one of the puppy protesters entered the auditorium and began shouting at Rep. Sweeney. While I swung around and tried to get a snapshot, the sheriff stood up and sternly escorted her outside. The debate wrapped up a few minutes later (when we discovered that it had in fact started at 6pm). Rep. Sweeney graciously thanked us for attending; we were then informed that upon our initial tardy entrance into the auditorium some of Sweeney's staff thought we were part of the protest. They actually radioed the police department for backup!

Meanwhile, I headed outside to grab some photos of the protesters. Apparently some community members who attended the debate warned Katie Jo that the puppy protesters were "dangerous radicals," but I was already well on my way over to them at that point. They received my advance warmly, attempting to proselytize me while I took pictures. Out of nowhere a sedan drove up next to us with the window rolled down. The driver shouted at the protesters: "Go home! Y'all have made big enough a**es out of yourself already!" - to which the two women responded with dog barks.


An additional police officer arrived shortly afterwards as the hostile driver swung by once more only to be routed again by a chorus of dog woofs. Our group got a good laugh out of the hilarity of the situation, from our late arrival to having the cops called on us to being hounded by animal welfare protesters. We wrapped the evening up with a brief interview with a reporter from the local newspaper who asked us our opinions on the debate.

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