Coors and Bud Can Determine Your Alleigance

In a shameless ripoff from the guys at LLPN from their less shameless ripoff of a great report from The Carpetbagger Report, I give you a test to determine if you are a rightie, a leftie, or a fence-sitting weenie.

This test has been thoughtfully created by "a unique team of authors," including a former Clinton aide, a two-time Bush campaign strategist and a journalist, and is a part of their new theory called Applebee's America. This theory is also a book by the same name.

In it, a new political buzzword called Gut Values (under the premise that Americans make choices about politics, religion and store purchases with the heats, not their heads) which determines a person's habits and ultimately their political leaning. Leaders, as this book perports, can use this information to touch people at "gut-level" through strategies that speak to these urges.

The authors go on to say that Red State/Blue State doesn't matter, given that in some cases, the minority party is nearly 50% of the population, thus claiming total redness or blueness is innaccurate. Instead, they offer that individuals are part of a "tribe:" a red tribe (R), a blue tribe (D), or a tipping tribe (swing). These theories come full-circle in that which tribe someone belongs to can be determined by, again, their consumer choices. Interesting, no?

Where this theory really gets fun is that the authors offer a 12-question quiz. When you submit the answers, it gives you a rating. Apparently, I am solidly in the Red Tribe with a score of 11.

Take the test, and see where you are. Then come back here for more.

Besides for this quiz and the overall concept being amazingly...ummm...silly and stupid, I see some real problems with the questions that I think bely the actual political leanings of the authors of this debacle: they are all solidly in the Red Tribe.

Some of the "better" questions include:

Which special event would you be more inclined to attend?
*Monster Truck Show
*Pro Wrestling Match

Personally....neither. I hate both and find them boring and unentertaining. But I have to choose one of those two predominantly non-blue-state special events.

Another:
If we checked your Internet history, it would more likely show that you had visited:
*An auction site, like eBay
*A dating site, like Match.com

What if I don't visit either? Given that I really only use the internet to blog or download porn (or both, simultaneously), I have no options here that I feel truly classify me.

Take a serious look at some of the questions and their implications:
1) Extra Dollar. Rainy day? Fiscally conservative. Lottery Ticket? Financially irresponsible.

4) Free subscription. US News? Informed. TV Guide? Trite and shallow.

5) Buying groceries. Wal-Mart? Regular American. Whole foods? Drippy hippy peacenik.

8) Happy Hour. Coors? Huge Republican contributor. Bud? Made by unionized labor.

The test is wrought with examples of "what is American" like so many other brainless "here's America, here's what's not" publications. Again, I contend that the authors show their true colors through they choices they give.

Now look at it this way. I took the test and gave all of the first answers; the answers I contend are more right-leaning. Sure enough: If you answer with the first answer in all the questions, you get a perfect 12; Red. If you answer all of the questions using the second option, which I again contend are drippy, boring, conservative-driven stereotypes of Democrats, you score a perfect 0; Blue. Now, randomly select and 6 to answer with the first option and any 6 with the other and you score...you guessed it...a 6; Tipper.

Two problems. Again, this is so far from a sociologically accurate study that it is literally a farce. Next, its answers rely on either a 1-verion of America (Coors and Bud? No difference. Wrestling and trucks? No difference) or stereotypical views (do you like big American stores or those silly Eurotrash organic hippy stores) of what is "red" or "blue."

What worries me the most is that this cute little gag-quiz is a marketing tool for their half-baked idea of a political theory. It either affirms that most Americans are brainless meatheads who can't think with their brains or that we so easily succumb to stereotypes that a "blue" person just couldn't ever drag themselves into a Wal-Mart or bother watching the Discovery Channel or mainstream sports versus hoity-toity soccer or tennis.

All these guys are doing is affirming these washed-up ideas of what is American (red) and what is not (blue) through an entire book about how to reach the American "gut-level." Apparently, it's by hoping we all fall into some sort of stereotype.

Fortunately, there are plenty of people who already see through this as silly, bogus and trite.

So tonight, I will drive to my suburban home in my GM car, spend quality time with my family, building character and values, and end the night by drinking a beer made by a small businessman and entrepreneur from Kalamazoo.