On the trail: Recycled steaks and recycled speeches

INDIANOLA, Iowa (CNN) -- Think picnic, political fundraiser, circus, and rally and it pretty much gives you a visual of The Harkin Steak Fry on a hot-air balloon field in Indianola, Iowa.

The steak isn't fried -- it's grilled. Also, they had chicken and free beer. A local high school band sold water for a dollar. The meat was from Iowa. One of the grillers told Sen. Hillary Clinton that the chicken was from Arkansas but that was just a little Iowa humor.

A quick explainer: Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin is a four-term senator from Iowa, home of the first contest of the presidential election season, which explains why six of eight Democratic presidential contenders were there with Tom, me and 12,000 of his closest friends.

Absentees: Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel. They were not invited to speak because they don't have an active campaign in Iowa. I did not set this ground rule so please take it up with someone else.

This was a primo crowd for a politician. These are the kind of people who pay $30-a-head to spend a gorgeous Sunday afternoon in September listening to roughly two hours of political speeches, which is to say the same kind of people who are most likely to brave a cold January night to go caucus in support of their candidate of choice. View pictures from the steak fry »

Worth noting, however: Well-heeled candidates buy up tickets for the Steak Fry and give them to supporters.

The basic staples of a campaign event were there: stickers, buttons, T-shirts (including some for Kucinich), "Hillary megaphones" loaded with popcorn, pens with pull-out pie charts of the nation's spending priorities, and a snowman (think global warming).

Sen. Barack Obama had the grandest entrance -- kind of like the Pied Piper of Indianola, he led a parade of noisy supporters through the ticket gate. They had to walk through a phalanx of empty paint can-banging Clinton supporters, but no blows were exchanged.

Most everyone else showed up separately at a more private grill area on a hilltop where they: 1. had their picture taken with Tom Harkin; and 2. flipped a steak for more pictures. No one flipped chicken.

My rogue producer asked Clinton when she had last grilled anything, but she didn't answer.

The great thing was the organizers used the same meat for all the flipping photo-ops. They took already-cooked meat off the grill when a candidate left, and dumped it back on when the next one arrived. Let me tell you, by the time the hour-long arrival period was over, those were some well-worn steaks.

The speeches were OK, but no news was committed. They all, as Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut so delicately put it, "pandered" to Harkin and then did their stump shtick with several references to the Kevin Costner movie, "Field of Dreams."

Obama went the longest. Dodd was the loudest. Joe Biden of Delaware was the most serious. David Yepsen, the Des Moines Register's eminence grise on politics said New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was the best.

They were all on the stage together listening to each other's stump speeches for the first time. So, the best part was watching them listen.

I used the word "listen," but I don't think they did. They looked incredibly bored. E-mail to a friend

All About Tom Harkin • Iowa Caucus • Ruth Harkin • Democratic Party