Every four years, politicians and the reporters who cover them spend months in Iowa wooing voters ahead of the February caucuses. There's inevitably a lot of photo ops with grain silos and corn fields in the background, not to mention interviews with weathered farmers who are supposed to stand in for the state's two million registered voters.

Iowans will do plenty of eye-rolling this campaign, but many have developed a sense of humor about those stereotypes. Mike Draper, owner of RAYGUN in Des Moines, has turned cliches about his home state into a booming business, poking fun at the people who make them. At his store, there's a whole section for national media, filled with T-shirts that say things like, "Is there a bale of hay I can interview you next to?"


Mike Draper, owner of RAYGUN, shows off his latest line of T-shirts for out-of-state media in downtown Des Moines's East Village district.

How campaigns act about — and in — Iowa could matter, according to pollster J. Ann Selzer. If they buy into the stereotypes about Iowa and agriculture, she says, they'll attract a totally different set of voters on caucus night. But if they broaden their scope "and understand that Des Moines is the third-largest insurance capital on the planet, very white collar, lots of people doing lots of different things, there's a whole other world besides ag in Iowa."

Here's what Iowans want you to know about the state: