The advertising in the race for the U.S. Senate has taken another unusual turn. First, Senator Chuck Grassley bragged in an ad about mowing his own grass back at his New Hartford farm. Now, democratic challenger Art Small is, well, singing. Small says he doesn’t have much money, or paid consultants, and just decided on his own to sing in his own campaign commercial. “Once upon a time, a long time ago, I used to have a pretty good voice,” Small says. “As you can see, it’s sort of diminished over the years, but it was a fun thing to do, so I did it.” Small says you may recognize the tune. “There was a great song after the World War I which went ‘How do you keep ’em back on the farm after they’ve seen Pa-ree?'” Small says. “I changed it a little bit to make it appropriate for now and now it goes ‘How do you chuck Chuck back to the farm after he’s seen D.C.?’ because he’s been in office continually for 46 years and in Washington for 30 and I thought what I’m trying to do is chuck Chuck back to the farm.” So what does Small expect someone to think when they hear him singing on their car radio?Small says he hasn’t the “foggiest idea” but was just trying to make the campaign interesting. Small has a history of writing plays and songs. For five years during his time in the state Senate, Small wrote an annual musical. In that run of plays, a main character named Ozzie Kinkade gave bad advice on issues of the day, and lots of legislators starred in the productions. “I remember a very conservative republican who was dressed up as the state tooth fairy,” Small says. “It was a fun event.” Small says he writes plays, songs and poems and just last year had a play produced in Iowa City. Small says they were not very memorable plays. “I don’t pretend to be Iowa’s version of Will Shakespeare.”
