AMES, Iowa. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Despite the late entrance into the 2012 Republican presidential race by Texas Governor Rick Perry -- a formidable conservative with deft skills on the stump -- Michele Bachmann emerged as the clear front-runner after winning the GOP straw pole in Ames, further fortifying her position as a top tier candidate for the Republican nomination. Bachmann is now widely considered the favorite to win the Iowa caucuses early next year. Despite Perry’s ease with engaging the public, his ability to galvanize Tea Party conservatives and his fundraising prowess, Bachmann demonstrated crowd pleasing skills at the Iowa State Fair that she said Perry and the other GOP contenders completely lacked.

“I’d like to see Rick try this,” Bachmann teased, grabbing a 14-inch corn dog and sliding it suggestively into her mouth. “If Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Bob Allen or Ted Haggard were campaigning this year, I’d have something to worry about. But I don’t see my esteemed colleague from Texas as much of a threat. He might be slick on the stump, but against me I don’t believe he can, as Teddy Roosevelt famously said, ‘carry a big stick.’”

At the end of Bachmann’s demonstration, the crowd erupted into gleeful ejaculations of cheers and applause.

“Michele’s from Iowa,” said one blushing trucker in the audience as he lit a cigarette and cracked open a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. “It’s obvious to me that she knows what Iowans need. Being president’s a tough job, and we want to know our leaders aren’t going to choke. Strong stomachs and weak gag reflexes are important.”

(c) 2011. All stories are works of satire and parody.