Saturday, September 6, 2008
The Much-Coveted "Hockey Mom" Demographic
Latest Poll Reveals 430 New Demographics That Will Decide Election
From "lunch-bucket Democrats" and "latte liberals" to my new favorite, "hockey moms," we've been loaded up with an earful of demographic data on what sliver of the American public is going to decide this election. The Onion clip above illustrates this sort of pseudo-scientific attempt to predict voting habits beautifully.
Now, I have nothing against hockey moms. To me, this term has zero significance because, like the vast majority of Americans, I don't have any opinion whatsoever about the sport of hockey. Which begs the question: exactly what percentage of the American public are self-identified "hockey moms"? What political dividends is it paying for Sarah Palin to wear that demographic label so proudly?
No disrespect to the denizens of "the Great State of Alaska" or any of the other regions lying at a latitude northerly enough for ice hockey to be a viable sporting option. Nonetheless, this population of individuals is dwarfed by, say, the good ol' "soccer mom" demographic, let alone all the "tennis moms" and "T-ball dads." As a percentage of our total population, "hockey moms" are probably about on par with "racquetball grandmas."
Yet at the RNC one could see numerous "Hockey Moms for Sarah Palin!" signs in the audience. Since most of these people were probably not real "hockey moms," what is it that's so appealing about everyone's favorite new demographic? Is it simply a colorful biographical detail that people have jumped on? Or did the GOP really truly find the Holy Grail of voter demographics?
Beats me. You can bet one thing for sure, though: "hockey moms" are a much more patriotic and all-American group than volvo drivers, latte drinkers, and granola eaters. They're certainly more American than music editors.
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3 comments:
Zack, I just searched online, and wow... they even have their own website and it's very impressive (www.hockeymoms.com). Take that, soccer moms! I think there may be more of them that we think! But, on another note, I was wondering what makes them more "American" than music editors? Or latte-drinkers? How are you defining "American?" Just curious.
Everyone who lives here has a claim at American-ness, of course, but I find it both funny and frustrating that a major GOP strategy over the last number of years has been to paint certain segments of our population as too liberal-environmental-coastal-(insert label here) to really understand America. These are the "elites" that Republicans talk about in mocking terms. Latte drinkers are just as American as hockey moms but the "hockey mom" label has become a political asset, while many of the liberal demographics are roundly demeaned as being un-American. A strange phenomenon; anyway, I was just being facetious in my post:)
hell, the fucking latte-drinkers are what keep our country afloat in it's corporation-saturated business-y world. How can they really think that you can dissect out who are the "real" or "true" americans?
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