The most anticlimactic moment in last week’s election had to be Art Small’s concession call to Sen. Chuck Grassley, the formidable Iowa Republican most people don’t want to squander their political capital by opposing. Small’s defeat was predictable. He garnered fewer votes than David Osterberg, a bright guy who heads the Iowa Policy Project, did in 1998. Osterberg got 31 percent of the vote; six years later, Small got a meager 28 percent – and his support was probably inflated by straight-ticket voters.

I caught up with Small early this summer in Iowa City, the intrigue of his chances of winning, so, umm, small that his candidacy couldn’t even be called a long shot, piquing my curiosity. I’d talked to him on the phone, and incorrectly assumed from a voice that years of cigarette smoking had turned to gravel that I’d have to carry him part way on the health walk. He was spry, though, and not only walked with a swift gait, but also lugged desks, chairs and file cabinets down two flights of stairs at the Cosgrove Institute, where the Iowa City Democrat maintained an office in which to do important thinking.

“It wasn’t as if I’ve been scheming and plotting to run, but I am happy to do it,” he said. “I didn’t file until the last day, thinking someone rich and famous would step forward. Some were afraid of losing, or that their political stock would be diminished. But what do I care? The very essence of democracy is to give people a challenge.”

And he did that, with a campaign that focused on issues. Small didn’t even try to keep a straight face about the likely success of his candidacy. “Think big, vote Small,” he joked, the double-entendre becoming a mantra for his campaign. At the Iowa Democrats big Jefferson-Jackson wingding last month, he was looking forward to Nov. 3, when he could give up the charade and return to normal life. “I’m not re-upping,” he said. The state party barely recognized the presence of its latest sacrificial lamb.

You have to admire the guy. The party’s big names, such as Secretary of State Chet Culver, whose father lost his Senate seat to Grassley in 1980, and former gubernatorial candidate Roxanne Conlin, turned down the chance to go up against Grassley. Until Small stepped up, Iowa Democrats were content to leave the No. 2 slot on the ballot open, a bizarre strategy in a presidential election year. It’s doubtful Iowa Republicans will be as magnanimous in 2008 when Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat, comes up for re-election. Greg Ganske’s challenge to Harkin in 2002 wasn’t the nuisance that Small’s was to Grassley, and anyone who believes the GOP will concede the race before it begins probably also expects to wake up one morning soon and discover that John Kerry was elected president after all.

Grassley is something of an enigma, a “Teflon” senator who rails against runaway defense spending, yet accepts campaign contributions from defense contractors; a politician who talks about extending drug benefits to all senior citizens while accepting millions of dollars from the pharmaceutical industry. He’s also a chameleon. To Iowans, he’s an aw-shucks, down-to-earth kind of guy who comes home every year to farm and still mows his own lawn, yet he sheds that homespun image in Washington, where he’s a dealmaker who rakes in millions of dollars from special interests and wields incredible power as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

But conceding the seat? Be very afraid.