Are You a Bubba or a Bobo ?  Take Our Culture Wars Quiz

by Michele

We're not going to talk about the actual election today.  Talking about the actual election could lead to unpleasantness.  The unpleasantness might go something like this.  I have a candidate.  You have a candidate.  If your candidate is not the same as my candidate, then you are wrong.

Luckily, we don't need to talk about the election, because we have people called pundits to talk about the election for us.  These days, especially on Fox News, most pundits are blonde and have 36-double Ds.  (Real?  I think not.) Some people think this is okay because pundits are so vacuous anyway that they might as well look the part.  Personally I prefer to get my news from somebody with a brain. Such as:

  If I want somebody with a brain who is also gorgeous, I pick:  . (And yes, I know he'll never love me back.)

Even though most pundits are brainless and annoying, for some strange reason it's hard to stop listening to them.  Maybe that's because wherever you go, there they are.  On the radio, on the t.v., in the newspaper, in your house and your car.  They're all saying the same thing.  They're saying that how you vote depends on who you are.  That it's all demographics.  Here's a relatively well-written piece from The Times that makes the demography-is-everything argument.  (Actually, the exit polling does support this.)

When we at TLC learned that voting is all demographics, we got worried that we might be supporting the wrong candidate.  What if we mistakenly voted for someone who is not cool to others in our age and education cohort?  That would be as upsetting as wearing the wrong shoes to an important event.  To address this critical problem, and to help others who might be facing it also, we devised a simple quiz. 

Step One: Answer the questions below to determine which side of the culture gap you fall on. 

A.  My beverage of choice is:

1. A nice cold Budweiser
2. Red Bull
3. A glass of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc
4. A Venti Skim Latte

B.  I prefer to tote:

1. An AK-47 and extra ammo
2. A gas can for when the tank runs out
3. An Hermes Kelly bag
4. A "green" grocery bag

c.  My idea of a good time is:

1. Hunting
2. NASCAR
3. gardening
4. windsurfing

D.  The degree that added the greatest number of zeros to my income is:

1. the GED
2. the B.A.
3. the M.D.
4. the MRS (Ladies, given recent statistics on backsliding in wage equality, you might want to think twice about this one).

E.  I prefer to cling to:

1. guns
2. my teddy bear
3. the ACLU
4. George Clooney

Now it's time for the moment of truth.  Add up the number of points and correlate your score to your candidate using the simple chart below. (Warning: Write-in votes or drafting nominees at the convention may be necessary.)

• 0-5 points -- Charlton Heston (so what if he's dead?)
• 5-10 points -- Ron Paul
• 10-15 points -- Al Gore
• 15-20 points -- Sean Penn

Voila!  Voting couldn't be easier. 

Comments

[toni mcgee causey]

Wait. Blonde Bond wasn't an answer anywhere? I am... distraught. And kerfluffled. And I want to vote for Jon Stewart, too. (Now that is a ticket I could get behind.) (Hush, Me, Margie, not that way.)

[Joyce Tremel]

I want a retest.

[michele]

The nice thing about our quiz, Joyce, is that you can take it as often as you like, and like a poll, you're allowed to lie on it.

Blond Bond IS an answer. But to which question??

[William Simon]

Ahem!

No Jennifer Love Hewitt? No Cate Blanchett?? No Paget Brewster??? NO DIANA RIGG?!?!?!?!

I'm outta here; Equality is a MYTH....

[Anna C.]

What about degrees like the PhD that actually make you less employable, and lower the salary? Or like the Mrs. that make you more employable because the employer says - "oh, you can be on your husband's health insurance, so you don't need me to provide it."

Would that be the embittered intellectual demographic?

[michele]

Anna, you are exactly in the spirit of this exercise!

William, you're an astute observer as always. We here at TLC decided that nominating women and minorities only serves to bring out the inner sexism and racism of the electorate. It's hard enough to look in the mirror in the morning without having to confront your inner demons, so we decided to go easy. White males for now, and maybe we'll try the open election thing in another hundred years or so.

I have a proposal for changing the electoral system. Here it is. No campaigns. On a fixed date, everybody shows up and writes in their candidate of choice. The person with the most votes wins. The person with the second most votes is vice president.

Aaaah -- but who would we choose? There was a moment when it would've been Britney Spears.

[Anna C.]

My favorite uncle (he was a embittered Scottish intellectual) used to say that the Prime Minister should be selected at random from the phone book and made to serve for a fixed term with no chance of a second term.

[Maryann Mercer]

Could you imagine the quandry with those handwritten votes? "Does that say Simon or Salmon or Lemon?" "Now Martha, I told you to bring your bifocals"...We could end up with Goofy and Gumby(not saying what I'm thinking)or Paris Hilton, who might at least be persuaded to part with some of her bling to get us out of the recession.
Then again, my score was a 14...and I did vote for Gore, so that test could be more relevant than we know :o)

[Maryann Mercer]

What's with typepad? I had a brilliant post totally vanish! Hmmmph

[Maryann Mercer]

Or not...

[William Simon]

Michele said: We here at TLC decided that nominating women and minorities only serves to bring out the inner sexism and racism of the electorate.

(pouring martini, lighting cigar, tilting fedora over eyes, loosening necktie, looking at legs, turning up Sinatra loud) I am not sure what you mean, Michele. Are you saying The Tarts will no longer dress like Hefner Bunnies?

[michele]

Mr. Typepad has been asked today to perform the role of the voting equipment in the state of Florida in a production of "Mr. Typepad and the Hanging Chads."

Anna C's uncle had a brilliant idea. If we combine that with Maryann's point about the difficulty of deciphering handwriting, we could come up with some very interesting random selections. Can you imagine -- suddenly a librarian from Tulsa as president, or an electrician from Weehawken?

[michele]

Hey wait a minute -- my comment just disappeared too! I had just written a long entry about how Mr. Typepad was acting like the Florida voting machines, with references to hanging chads and whatnot, and wouldn't you know, Mr. Typepad disappeared it!

[michele]

Oh no -- there it is -- it just showed up.

[Sue]

I cast my vote for my Granny. Woman could make the most warring of fractions make nice with one look, and there was no one better at balancing a budget with nothing in it. If asked nicely, I'm sure she could be persuaded to come back from the hereafter to lead us all.

[Nancy martin]

I spent the weekend in Canada, and I must admit I'm always tempted to stay. I just saw Fareed Zakari on the Today Show. Here's an excerpt from his book, THE POST-AMERICAN WORLD: http://www.newsweek.com/id/135380

[Karen in Ohio]

Zakariah was on Fresh Air last week, too. He makes some compelling points, doesn't he?

All kidding aside, I'm wary of putting someone in the Oval Office who does not have a better grasp of international diplomacy than the average Joe or Jane. We've had enough of that. Sorry, Michele, I can't quite get in the spirit of your very entertaining blog this morning! Sue's dead granny is not going to help a whole lot, I'm afraid.
Signed,
Dash of Cold Water

[Cara]

Brains, social committment, oh, and looks...I say we write in George Clooney

[Cara]

Brains, social committment, oh, and looks...I say we write in George Clooney

[michele]

Thanks for that link, Nancy. He makes some excellent points. Post-Americanism sounds like a good thing, don't you think? Look at what the Europeans are doing with their all-washed-up status. Sounds good to me.

Karen, of course you're right. Random slection has its problems, too. I don't think that's where I intended to have this blog go. My point was more, isn't the news media dimwitted these days (esp. the tv but the papers, too!) and isn't it interesting how we all vote our demographics? Where does that leave us, if not with absurd results?

[michele]

Sorry, guys -- Mr. Typepad keeps eating my comments. Hope that isn't happening to too many of you.

[Kathy Sweeney]

I'm thinking a combination of the caucus system and full contact football - no pads. Everyone who wants to vote shows up at the nearest stadium, and chooses teams. Whichever team has the most people left standing at the end wins. I think it would be more civilized.

I'm liking the write-in option as well - I mean, I'm not saying that the political system in Pennsylvania is rigged or anything. I'm just saying that if we did switch to write-in votes, the dead would probably only vote twice, instead of half a dozen times. That would be progress.

[Josh]

Sweeney, the dead trend towards my candidates, so I'm not opposed to their voting. If they would vote for the other candidates, well, then I say we should stake them before they close the curtain.

[michele]

Zombie voting. I love it.

[Kathy Sweeney]

Hah! I'll be on the look out for "Zombies for ________" t-shirts. Talk about a way to get the youth vote! The kids love them some zombies.