Come election, politicians know their pork

USATODAY.com: "During the campaign season, every politician wants to be Everyman, and there is no better Everyman than a farmer. Clothed or not. John Kerry kicked off his campaign with John Edwards on the Heinz family 'farm' outside of Pittsburgh last week. Never mind that everyone was wearing suits and ties. They were down on the farm.
I did a Web search after I watched the speeches, just to see what kind of farm it was. Apples? Corn? Dairy cows? Tomatoes, maybe, for the family ketchup empire. From what I could gather, it's none of the above, but a very nice farm nonetheless. A pool, outhouses (not those kind), a formal garden. 'Landscaped' was a word used more than once to describe the 90 acres of Pennsylvania countryside.

The house even has a library. Farmhouses usually don't have libraries. At least not the ones I spent time in as a child. You went to town for that.
As for animals, none was mentioned. No cows. No sheep. Not even a dog.
One geographically and culturally challenged TV reporter called the place a 'ranch,' but we all know it's no more a ranch than it is a farm. He has obviously spent too much time in Texas. Speaking of Texas, I've never figured out what kind of 'ranch' President Bush escapes to every chance he gets.

All I ever see on TV is an old wagon next to a weathered barn, strategically placed backdrops. If my father were alive, he'd say, 'That man needs to take care of his barn!' Bush's 1,600-acre spread has a creek, a canyon, a waterfall, meadows, deer and a lake stocked with bass, which seems a bit like cheating to me, but that's another column.

There's also a pool. We who hail from farms and ranches know there's rarely a pool, let alone time to sit around one. That's why so many of us live in the city now, with cushy jobs, pecking out words on laptops. It's a lot easier than spending July afternoons picking Bing cherries with the stems still on."