This post is part of our Big Company, Small Town series, featuring large companies and the small towns in which they are headquartered.

Ever taken a road trip in an RV? If you have, there is a good chance that you were inside a Winnebago recreational vehicle. The name Winnebago has been synonymous with the large RV for as long as I can remember. With such a rich history, one would think Winnebago is located somewhere next a major interstate corridor or airport. Otherwise, how would it receive in its raw materials and ship out its finished product?

Winnebago Industries, Inc. (NYSE: WGO) is actually based in Forest City, Iowa, founded in 1958 in Winnebago County (that's where the company's name comes from). From its inception, the company has been involved with travel trailers. It used names from Native American tribes to name its different lines of trailers, and in the 1970s and early 1980s, made smaller trailers as gas prices spiked upward. In fact, come this summer, one of Winnebago's manufacturing plants in Charles City, Iowa, will be closed due to drastic changes in Winnebago's market due to higher gas prices and declining demand. The company has already laid off 200 employees from its headquarters in Forest City.

Unlike many American companies these days, Winnebago still makes the majority of its products in the United States, most of which are built on top of chassis units made by Ford or Chevy. The term Winnebago has made itself, after more then 40 years, into a brand name completely associated with RVs and trailers. Do you blow your nose with a Kleenex or tissue? Drink Coke or a soft drink? Go on vacation in a Winnebago or travel trailer? There's the brand power the company continues to have today, even with the hard times its experiencing.

Be sure to check out more Big Company, Small Town posts.

I was motivated to write this by a recent blog post by Jonathan Berr entitled, Iowa to Wall Street: Drop dead. In that post Jonathan made one assertion to which I take exception. Mr. Berr claims that the American voter is scared and that our fear shall rule the ballot box this coming November. With all due respect (and much is due) to Jonathan Berr, I must make this one assertion, it's not fear that we shall carry to the ballot box in November, it's anger. We as a public are very angry and we have every right to be mad as hell.

We're mad because we know that as major banks were writing off losses they brought upon themselves, they sold those debt portfolios to collection agencies and pools of lawyers who relentlessly chased those dollars until the cows came home. Yeah, it's a loss on the books but those debts are still real and collectible. Do they honestly think we don't know that?

We're angry because our government is silently allowing the sale of large stakes in major domestic financial institutions to foreign entities.

We're upset that our government is underwriting the foolishness of producing ethanol from foodstuffs for use in internal combustion engines when good sense tells us that ethanol should be made from waste and used at it's source for electrical generation.

We're mad as hell that we're potentially facing a government made up mainly of turncoat Democrats who sanctioned a war with their votes and now haughtily claim they were misled. They're liars or they're stupid... which is it?

Let this be the last Iowa caucus that matters. Ditto for the New Hampshire primary. It is simply insane that two states that are among the least representative of America have so much say over who is elected president. That power should be given to the only state that really matters: New Jersey.

Instead of criss-crossing the cornfields of Iowa and the hamlets of New Hampshire, candidates should be getting to know the state I call home. They should marvel at the farm land of Salem County, Atlantic City's casinos and the beaches of Cape May. Imagine what the potential leaders of the free world can learn from listening to folks eating breakfast at a Jersey diner, or wandering the highways of South Jersey trying to make a left turn. Let them try and find a spot in a New Jersey Transit parking lot after 7 a.m., and take a gander at a sky-high property tax bill.

New Jersey also is among the most densely populated states, with pockets of enormous wealth (Bergen County near New York City) and extreme poverty (Camden, near Philadelphia). There's the beauty of Barnegat and the ugliness of Elizabeth. Politicians of both parties could learn quite a bit from the Garden State.

But my pleas will fall on deaf ears. We Americans pick a president with less sophistication than most high school seniors chose the king and queen of their proms. Maybe one day it will change, but I doubt it.

Until then, the rest of the country is going to have to take the hand-me-downs left to us by an antiquated electoral system in Iowa and New Hampshire.