The phrase “Will it play in Peoria?” traces its roots to the days of Vaudeville. Performers believed the inhabitants of this city on the banks of the Illinois River to be the ultimate “focus group”: far enough from the East Coast that most of the latest trends hadn’t reached them yet but close enough to Chicago so some of them had, small enough to ensure the residents had some sort of common rural sensibilities but big enough that they weren’t total bumpkinish rubes. Advertisers, entertainers, and politicians still see the people of Peoria, nestled in the heart of the state in the heart of the country, to be the quintessential Americans. If a message could be accepted here, if it “played” here, it would play anywhere.