Posted on 01/18/2004 2:00:43 PM PST by Forgiven_Sinner
All I know about Iowa is based on two things: A l940s movie, "State Fair" with Jeanne Crain and Dana Andrews; and the 16 days it seems to take to cross Iowa by auto on the way to Los Angeles. I do know they're famous for corn and hogs.
"I'll tell you how I feel," the hubby replies, all but spitting out his dentures, "Howard Dean can take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading. ..." Here the wife continues "... body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show back to Vermont where it belongs." Wow! Where do I fit in here? Where do any of my fellow Maine liberal friends fit in?
I decided to do some research in the public sector, on foot and by phone, hopefully to find the "perfect liberal." First, I needed to know how many of these items were available to central Mainers.
Volvos: Not many. But a dealership in Bangor that preferred not to be named does a very good business with the choice of Swedes everywhere. Ed Paione of Goodwin's Volvo dealership in Topsham proudly claims to have sold about 500 new and used Volvos this past year. So, if we're to take Club For Growth at their word, we have to figure there are a good many liberals in the Bangor and Topsham areas at least. Sure, even neo-cons know a good car when they see one. Of course, some of those must be hanging around the Capitol in Augusta.
Latte drinking: We assume they mean Starbucks, the icon for all things liberal. Starbucks in Augusta's Barnes & Noble bookstore admits to churning out a considerable number of lattes a day. Liberals are snapping up gingerbread lattes, white chocolate mochas and frappacinos by the bucket.
Of course, all those young, topcoated, straight-haircut neo-cons from Georgetown to Hallowell quaff their share of peppermint double-cream drinks, but probably sip them in back alleys out of brown paper bags.
Government expanding: Well, George Bush's explosive deficits and all of his big plans to build condos on the moon and his Iraq war budget blew that one out of the water.
New York Times reading: Combined with lattes and sushi chomping, comic Bill Maher tells us that this is the right wing's private code. (Read Jewish, Maher says.) You can bet that whenever a neo-con says "New York types," he doesn't mean Jehovah's Witnesses.
Joe's Smoke Shop, both in Portland and Waterville (different owners), sells stacks of the Times each day, as does the bookstore at Colby College. Most colleges here in Maine, as elsewhere, have huge subscription levels of Times readers. It's safe to say most are liberals. Conservatives wouldn't be caught dead reading the Times on the shuttle, not even with the recent addition of conservative David Brooks.
Sushi eating: Well, central Mainers aren't famous for noshing anything they could put on the end of a fishing line out at the ice shack.
One would be hard pressed to find a sushi cafe in this part of the state. Portland has dozens. It is rumored, however, that one can pick up a sushi platter at Shaw's in Augusta. We'll check that out.
Body piercing: Most pierced bodies are aged 12 to 19. I questioned a number of them in Waterville and found only two who knew an election was coming up, and neither could find Iowa on the map.
An exception: One young woman, Laura Patterson of Communities for Children, who is a VISTA volunteer from Seattle and a card-carrying liberal, confesses to at least four of the above, including the two rings over her left eye.
Hollywood loving: Conservatives are the greatest hypocrites in history. In their book, Hollywood freaks do not include Charlton Heston, Ronald Reagan or Governor "Ahnuld." Now, even die-hard Maine liberals have been pretty hard on Hollywood in the past few years, especially frowning on Madonna and Brittany Spears' open-mouth kisses and Michael Jackson's baby-dangling behavior. But judging by the fanatic, near-frothing-at-the-mouth, crazed obsession with anything "Empire Falls," I would say that if promised a part in that film, even local Christian conservatives would put their check mark at the Dean box.
That leaves the wife's "left-wing freak show." Well, we've got plenty of those, but the far right's Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Ann Coulter (the leggy, blonde "Eva Braun"), Karl Rove, and the now-mummified Father of the Century, Strom Thurmond, surely qualify. As for this left-wing liberal writer, I have no pierced body parts, I drive a Toyota, I hate raw fish, I hate tax increases, and I agree that the government, including John Ashcroft, should really get off our backs.
Oh Lord! I'm one of them.
J.P. Devine of Waterville is a former free-lance columnist for the Los Angeles Times.
She's so liberal that she's making fun of how little she knows about red-state flyover country. And in fact, Iowa was not even a red state - it was blue Gore state.
Wow. Sucks to be the author.
Wow. What a profoundly stupid assumption.
I thought the current liberal stereotype was that they were all Jewish? Maybe they are just self-hating Jews. BTW Maureen Dowd, from what I know, isn't Jewish, and so aren't most the idiots that work at the Times.
Good luck with that whole thinking thing. Really hope it works out for you one day.
And what's with calling Ann Coulter "Eva Braun"? Is that an attempt to be sly in his Nazi reference? I suppose the people for whom he is writing get a good giggle out of that. The only thing the author got right was the word CON in the title.
My opinion of this commentary? Garbage.
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