Student gets candidates to pose with Mr. Potato Head

CLINTON, Iowa — It's not at all unusual for folks in Clinton to meet at least one of the presidential candidates. Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, John McCain, Chris Dodd et al have campaigned amid Clinton's 27,000 residents in recent months.

What's unusual — OK, a little odd — is for someone to have met almost all the candidates and taken photos of each one smiling with his Mr. Potato Head. That's right, Mr. Potato Head.

"The candidates have been in Iowa forever. Why not have fun with the whole process?" said Andy Green, 20. He's the kind of guy you'd imagine rushing up to Clinton, breathlessly saying: "You need to pose with Mr. Potato Head. You're the last Democrat to do this."

She complied.

The story of the man and his spudhead began in 2004, when Green inherited the toy from his dying grandfather. Grandpa Robert had kept the faux spud on his bedroom shelf, Green said, and treated it as a decoration. Green, however, wanted to show the toy around. So went the spudhead to the Statue of Liberty, Walt Disney World, the Marine Corps War Memorial.

When the candidates started holding events near the University of Northern Iowa, where Green is a sophomore, he jumped at the opportunity. Naturally, since campaigning in the caucuses means retail politicking at its most ardent and aggressive — signing autographs, shaking hands, posing for photos with a plastic spud — only two candidates declined Green's request: Sam Brownback, a Republican, and Joseph Biden, a Democrat.

"I'm not saying his refusal to take a photo with Mr. Potato Head doomed his campaign," Green said of Brownback, who has withdrawn from the race. "But I'm sure it didn't help that I was bad-mouthing him to a lot of people." As for Biden, Green said he'll never forget the senator's words: "He said, 'I don't take pictures with funny hats and funny toys.' Whatever."

To hear Green talk about the candidates is to listen to one political junkie's impressions of presidential hopefuls locked in the most competitive and open race in Iowa's caucus history.

"They've paid their dues. They've got the experience. I thought of my grandfather when I met them," he said of McCain and Dodd. Green is not sure why Fred Thompson is running. "He just doesn't seem into it," he said. He thinks John Edwards is trying too hard. "Up there on the stage, where he was speaking, he was really good. Funny, too. But when you meet him one on one, he seems uncomfortable in his own skin."

Green reserved his most intense reactions for Obama and Clinton, both of whom he's seen face to face a few times.

Clinton seemed "distant," "cold," "fake."

Meanwhile, Obama, Green said, was "engaging," "open," "just like one of us."

"Look at his photo with Mr. Potato Head. He got into it. He's really having fun."