MinnPost - The strange politics of kingmakers in corn ethanol country

Democrat Barack Obama strongly supports federal subsidies for corn ethanol, which has been reviled by consumers as causing higher food prices, by humanitarian activists as contributing to worldwide food shortages, by environmentalists as an ecological disaster, and by clean energy advocates as contributing to the atmospheric carbon linked to global warming.

Most critics of corn ethanol tend to be likely Obama voters. [I'd like to see support for this claim.]

Republican John McCain opposes subsidies for the biofuel, and he isn't shy about saying so. The Arizona senator recently told an audience in Des Moines — the capital of the state considered the nation's top corn and ethanol producer — that he'd stop the massive federal subsidies that give corn ethanol its commercial life.

Yet most producers of corn and ethanol tend to be likely McCain voters.