Bobby Green is Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's dream spokesperson.

Green owns the Cordova-based company Bob's Blacktop. His company brings in annual revenues of roughly $750,000, he said, and he doesn't offer his three employees health insurance. He doesn't have health insurance, either.

"I myself have had a couple surgeries, and those bills are just stacking up," Green said this week. "And I'm just having to make monthly payments on them."

Before introducing longtime mentor Don Wooten, host Kai Swanson said of his morning's duties, "My job is simply to keep things moving along, which I'll fail at right now. I understand from the program that our next speaker has five minutes, and when I saw that on the program, I told the organizer [New Ground Theatre's Chris Jansen], 'Good luck.' Because although he is one of the most gifted communicators I have ever known, he does believe - as do the ends of J.R.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings - that anything worth saying is worth saying lo-o-o-ong."

Traditional campaign-finance reform involves contribution limits, but nobody thinks they've made a dent in the role of money in politics. Candidates who must comply with contribution limits don't seem any less beholden to special interests than other politicians.

But a new type of election reform is gaining popularity around the country, and it's likely to make some headway in Iowa during this year's legislative session. While "clean elections" - publicly financed political campaigns - probably won't pass the state legislature this year, there's a good chance they'll make it farther than ever.

Near Wheatland, Iowa, sits the 200-acre Our Lady of the Prairie Retreat. It's roughly a 40-minute drive from the Quad Cities, and in one approach a car will go from a four-lane highway to a two-lane road to a dirt drive.

It's nearly a journey to the past, from the zipping traffic of modern times to a more primitive period, including an old farmhouse.

"Even the approach is a bit of calming, slowing down," said Sister Catherine Real, a retired member of the Davenport-based Congregation of the Humility of Mary (CHM) who volunteers as co-director of Our Lady of the Prairie. The retreat, she said, offers "a sense of God's presence" just a short drive from the urban grind.