Hawkus Caucus

“I trust he will be impartial because he has no ties to any one candidate.”

John Sutter, National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium

Photo by B. A. Myers

News Flash: The Republican party presidential candidate has been picked in Iowa. No need to wait two weeks for the official Iowa state caucuses, the Hawkus caucus took place in Dubuque, Iowa (population 57,222) this week, and the winner is . . . Michele Bachmann.

What’s a Hawkus caucus? Hawkus is a red-tailed hawk who lives at the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium in Dubuque. The folks at the museum thought it’d be fun to let the “red” hawk pick the Republican candidate for president. So, they presented Hawkus with photos of the top candidates, placed a tasty morsel—a dead mouse in this case—on each photo, and declared Ms. Bachmann the winner when Hawkus hopped down and scooped up her dead mouse. There’s a special reason Hawkus was chosen for this event. Not only is he a red-tailed hawk, but Hawkus was injured while living in the wild and has only one wing—the right wing.

Note: Dubuque is not a small town with its 57,222 residents (most of the towns in my stories have 10,000 or fewer residents), but it’s my hometown so I made an exception. Plus, it's a fun political story, and isn’t that nice for a change?

Read more:

■  River museum plans on Iowa ‘Hawkus’ day, Telegraph Herald, December 19, 2011.

■  Erik Hogstrom, Not-so-raucus ‘Hawkus’ caucus, Telegraph Herald, December 21, 2011.

[Telegraph Herald requires a paid subscription to access its articles online, so I’m not able to provide weblinks to the stories.]