Riding High
at the Fair

DES MOINES-- Another day, another candidate or two at the Iowa State Fair.

Sen. Barack Obama became the latest Democratic presidential contender to settle in at the pork producers' tent on Wednesday, treating his wife and two daughters to a pork chop during an extended tour through the fairgrounds. A day earlier, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton had flipped pork patties a few feet away.

Former Sen. John Edwards made the same pilgrimage on Wednesday; on Friday, former Sen. Fred Thompson will repeat it.

But Obama added something extra to his trip: the announcement that an icon of the fair, Norma Lyon, the former sculptor of a giant replica of a cow made of butter--a.k.a the butter cow--had endorsed his candidacy.

Then Obama rode two of the fairground rides, Big Ben and the bumper cars, with his older daughter, emerging buoyant.

"I was terrified," he said of the rides afterward. "What I do for my nine-year-old."
--Anne E. Kornblut