View of farm fields, Johnson County, Iowa (2003)

Iowa is still dominated by the descendants of white European immigrants who showed up here in the 19th century and have farmed this land ever since. The state, however, is anything but a quaint picture postcard, and when presidential hopefuls descend every four years, glad-handing their way through a string of pancake breakfasts and highway diners with the national media in tow, they risk the ire of the very people they are trying to woo. And some pay the political price. Just ask Mitt Romney.