Satirist Mo Rocca brought his not-so-serious charisma to the Great Hall in the Memorial Union on Monday night to provide a study break for students cramming for finals and year-end projects.

Rocca, who may be best known for his time providing satirical commentary for “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” based a portion of his performance on the Iowa caucuses while taking jabs at noteworthy politicians. And, with the caucuses coming up in early January, Rocca said he was relieved to have Iowa as the first state to hold its primary.

“I’m happy that Iowa is in this position of power, because who better to act as a firewall against con artists,” he said. “Iowans are stereotypically healthily skeptical against slicksters on the outside.”

Rocca then quickly took an opportunity to introduce the audience to what he deems to be his profession – being an expert at sounding like an expert.

He then elaborated by explaining his personal experience with his involvement with VH1’s “I Love the 70s” and “I Love the 80s” series.

“Sounding like an expert on pop culture is actually really easy because you don’t have to read anything,” Rocca said. “In order to be on a cable news channel, you’re going to need all the greatest news of the day including Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, all the stuff they focus on. But, when you run out of those topics, you’re going to need to talk about some of the stuff they give less attention to, and by that I mean politics.”

In his political rant, Rocca compared Chris Dodd’s head to a wheel of cheese, stated Fred Thompson needed a defibrillator and said Mormon flip-flopper Mitt Romney would be holding a news conference next week declaring his conversion to being Baptist.

Rocca’s performance was just what the doctor ordered for some. During a time of the academic year best known for all-night study sessions and cramming before dreaded finals, Matt Denner, senior in political science, was glad the ISU lecture series was able to bring in such a quality performer.

“I think this was a nice change of pace for some of the speakers we’ve seen this semester,” Denner said. “I just wish more students would make coming out to these lectures a regular thing. There is a lot of excellent stuff that gets passed by.”

Other students, such as Austin Ballhagen, freshman in pre-journalism and mass communication, were also glad to see Rocca’s performance.

“I was very impressed, I’m a really big Mo Rocca fan,” she said.