This ad, which Politico’s Maggie Haberman reports started to run in Iowa and South Carolina today, comes from the pro-Rick-Perry Super PAC “Make Us Great Again.” It doesn’t hit Newt Gingrich for his affairs — but that’s about all it leaves out. In barely more than half a minute, the spot reminds us that Gingrich has been in Washington for decades, that Mitt Romney once campaigned as a pro-choice candidate, that Gingrich was once found guilty for ethics violations, that Romney created Romneycare, that Gingrich joined Nancy Pelosi on the loveseat, that he supported TARP and that he lobbied for Freddie Mac. Whew. It makes me exhausted just to think about all those poor showings on the part of our frontrunners. For some reason, the attacks lodged themselves deeper in my mind than the praise for Perry, which comes at the end of the ad (I was too distracted by the sudden appearance of an iPad). But, in general, the spot makes me excited for Iowa. All polls aside, who knows what might happen there? As Allah has reported before, plenty of Iowans are still undecided. The closer we come to the caucuses, the more I begin to think anyone could win. It’s the essence of elections: We the people — messy, unpredictable, mercurial, yet somehow reliably rational in the pursuit of our own self-interest — decide. Cool.