December 19, 2011 -- Have you bought your arugula lately? Or do you stick to Iceberg lettuce? The answer might tell us whether you are conservative or progressive, red stater or blue stater, Republican or Democrat. How you eat or do not eat your veggies apparently indicates your political bent.
David Wasserman did a roundup on this subject for the Washington Post and discovered that you are what you eat, either a Cracker Barrel or a Whole Foods person so you cast your vote the way you dine. “In 2012,” he writes, “the campaign might be a contest between these alternate universes of culture and cuisine: Whole Foods Markets and Cracker Barrel.” Texas journalist Bill Bishop has written a book entitled “The Big Sort; why the clustering of Whole Foods is blue and Cracker Barrel is red.”
Skeptical? According to Wasserman: “In 2008, candidate Barack Obama carried 81 percent of counties with a Whole Foods and just 36 percent of counties with a Cracker Barrel (he won the state anyway). In 2000, Vice President Al Gore won 58 percent of counties now containing a Whole Foods and 26 percent of those now boasting a Cracker Barrel … in 1992, Gov. Bill Clinton won 60 percent of Whole Foods counties and 40 percent of Cracker Barrel.” You may remember the Obama oops moment in Iowa in 2007 when he said “Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?” Iowa didn’t have a Whole Foods at that time.
“Politics is aligned with lifestyle right now, not policy” Bishop writes. Nine Democrats in Congress voted against the Health Care reform got money from Cracker Barrel PAC.
The Nielsen people have a lifestyle zip code segmentation system which groups consumers under such headings as “Young Digerati”, "big fish, small pond", “Blue Blood Estates”, "low rate living", “Country Squires”, "single pleasures", and “Shotguns and Pickups.” I ran into this a decade or so ago when I was involved in helping determine where to open a new retail store. Nielson has 67 of these designated zip code groups with snappy names. Most Whole Foods are in zip codes with high populations of “Young Digerati” and “Blue Blood Estates,” while most Cracker Barrels sprout amid high concentrations of “Country Squires” and “Shotguns and Pickups”, says Wasserman. The fish counter versus the meat counter.
I like the Nielsen system although I do not know how they arrive at their conclusions, surely not by simple observation. If that were the case I would designate the zip code in which lies the Jewish Community Center where I go to exercise “old men lurching.” Or areas where a lot of people walk their dogs as “poop picker uppers.”
“Zany is not what we need in a president.”
To make sure we know who he was talking about Mitt Romney went on to say: “A leader needs to be someone of sobriety and stability and patience and temperance.” However, as NYT columnist Gail Collins reports: “Newt is sticking to his no-attacking-fellow-Republicans pledge, while Romney is running around calling him everything from unreliable to uninformed to uxorious. (I made the last one up.)”
Newt got it pretty hard by both Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul in this week’s Gypsy Caravan of a Republican debate (yes there was another debate this week) and is said to be losing his luster in Iowa where Bachmann and Paul are making a strong showing. The gaggle of political experts at the Daily Beast say the Iowa caucus could very well turn out of be a foursome, no clear winner, the water muddied. Jon Huntsman seems to be content to portray the adult in the room, above the children’s raucous play, ready to step up with dignity when people get tired of the fun and games. Santorum is said to be working extremely hard practically full time in Iowa yet can’t seem to get anyone’s attention, or so the polls indicate. Mark McKinnon and George Caudill say: “Newt Gingrich is starting to lose steam, Ron Paul is surging, and it's show time for Jon Huntsman.” If these people were a zip code Nielson could call them “pandering political promisers.”
Republican candidates signing a “personhood” pledge
Pledges seem to be the big thing this year. A group is pressing the Republican candidates to sign one that says life begins at the moment an egg is fertilized, hence “personhood” begins. The ramifications of this idea are very large, not only making any kind of abortion illegal but would also prohibit many forms of birth control and in vitro fertilization. Newt Gingrich signed on even though he had publicly rejected the concept earlier this month. Romney is said to be “dithering,” or in other words trying to figure out to find reason not to sign it while sounding as though he thought it was a great idea (as a governor he did not make an effort to abortion because he had said he would not change any laws already on the books, although while running for the Senate against Ted Kennedy he was pro-choice because he said a relative had died from an illegal abortion). He is a used car salesman with a different deal in every pocket.
The multi-married Gingrich (who, once a Lutheran than a Southern Baptist, is now a baptized Catholic) may consider himself as speaking for the Church which is pushing hard against the legal sale and use of any form of contraceptive. It seems to me the Vatican ought to focus on the country which they are in the middle of. Italy has the lowest birth rate in Europe. You tell me all of those randy Italians are on the rhythm system?
“Personhood” is such a bad idea the voters of Mississippi rejected it. Gail Collins wrote “Which might make an excellent slogan for the current crop of presidential candidates” is “The Republican Field: So Far Right, Mississippi Thinks They’re Scary.”
Of course there are many in politics, as well as a sizeable number of the public, who can’t seem to get their heads out of the uterus. The secretary of Health and Human Services is ruling not to allow girls under 17 to buy Plan B, the emergency contraceptive pill, without a prescription and President Obama is going along with it. Also there is the question of whether rules for the new health care law should require that insurance plans cover the cost of contraceptives.
House Republicans tried to tie the latest bill to provide money toe keep the government going to de-funding Planned Parenthood, but were defeated. Collins wrote: “Those two things aren’t necessarily linked in most citizens’ minds, but everything reminds the House Republicans of their hatred of Planned Parenthood. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire. “Jingle Bells.” “A partridge in a pear tree.” She commented on the unpopularity of our legislators: “Really, everything has a higher approval rating than Congress. Termites. Zombies. Donald Trump.”
Then the Senate almost shut the government down
The House passed the $1 trillion spending bill and sent it to the Senate for approval before Friday or else the government would shut down where it ran into a road block. This time Democrats refused to pass it unless they got concessions on the Payroll Tax Cut. Republicans didn’t want to take up the Payroll Tax Cut until the budget bill was passed. At the last minute Thursday Senate leaders agree on 2-month extension of the Payroll Tax Cut so the government staggered on. But wait. When it went back to the House for approval as altered House Republicans are refusing to pass it, and are very angry at Senate Republicans for making the compromise. They will take it up again next week. Tuesday is the beginning of Hanukkah. Maybe they should spin a Dreidel to decide this thing.
Nielsen zip code group for Congress? “Cockfight Mentality Pols.”
The tab? $806 billion
The war in Iraq is over. The last of the troops have returned. We can now total p the cost in lives and money, which does not include loss of prestige as a world leader, or as role model and increasing the influence of Iran.
- U.S. deaths: 4,484
- U.S. wounded: 32,200
- Iraqi Security Force, or ISF, deaths: At least 10,125
- Iraqi civilian deaths 1003,374 to 113,265
- Internally displaced persons: 1.24 million
- Refugees: More than 1.6 million
Put the cost of Operation Iraqi Freedom at $806 billion. To it add projected total cost of veterans’ health care and disability: $422 billion to $717 billion.
What happens next is up to the Iraqi people who are having a tough time practicing democracy as we define it. Some legislators are boycotting parliament. The president seems to have authoritarian instincts. How much influence will Iran have? It is out of our hands. Columnist Maureen Dowd calls it this way in the New York Times: “The White House sees it this way on Iraq: The baby is born. The gestation period couldn’t be 18 years; eight years was bad enough. The midwife had to leave.”
If we group Bill Kristol, John Bolton, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, George Bush, and others responsible for this military adventure for Nielson, call it simply “hounds of war.”
A personal Andy Rooney moment
When a chance to do a good deed comes along and you take it, it is a good feel experience. Such an opportunity came my way one day this week. I got to support a better life for farming families. I got to support good environmental stewardship.
How did this happen? The label said it was:
“Tapped from the wild forests of the North Country” and read as follows:
“We wait all year for the spring to come. Once we get that first taste of Maple Syrup we know that summer is just around the corner. We take the tart flavor of lemons and mix in just enough of real Maple Syrup to make it taste just right. It’s a New England Recipe that’s sure to refresh year ‘round. By choosing this Fair Trade Certified product, you are directly supporting a better life for farming families through fair prices, direct trade, community development, and environmental stewardship.”
So there I was, enjoying a glass of lemonade while doing something for the good of the world. I wonder if it is tax deductible?
In a week that embraces both the first days of Hanukkah and Christmas let us hope the joy and comfort these celebrations give us will sustain us in the year to come no matter what may befall.
Happy Holidays.
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