While on vacation in Alaska back in August 2005, a few friends and I stumbled out of Seward's Yukon Bar only to stumble into Senators Hillary Clinton and John McCain strolling down 4th Avenue, purportedly in the area for a global warming conference. Little did we know that one camera click later, we had ourselves a photo with possibly the next President of the United States.
A few weekends ago, a relatively new friend of mine, in a totally non-demeaning way, told me that I looked like a Republican. I was absolutely stunned, not so much by her seemingly keen perception (my political views do tend to be slightly right of center), but because I try to avoid all political discussions as fervently as a visit to the proctologist. My friend's revelation got me to thinking -- “How does one look like a Republican, or a Democrat, or any other political persuasion for that matter?”
Maybe she was guilty of a little innocent political profiling. After all, I suppose I match the stereotypical Republican demographic – married, middle-aged, male, with short hair (okay, bald) and a white-collar job. I guess someone could mistake me for a Limbaugh Head on that alone, but I suspect there is more to it than just appearance alone. Living in a blue state, I know plenty of married, middle-aged males with white-collar jobs that are Democrats -- some I consider very good friends.
Perhaps when recounting the Clinton/McCain meeting to my friend back in 2005, I (uncharacteristically) mentioned that I was not a big Hillary fan. She may have surmised that I couldn’t possibly be a liberal if I didn’t like Hillary. However, based upon the current presidential primaries, there appear to be a good number of liberals that do not care for Mrs. Clinton either.
My friend also knows that I served three years in the U.S. Army back in the mid 70’s. Heck, I actually enlisted right after the draft ended, not exactly the behavior one would attribute to a devout left-winged liberal. I suspect that most of the people who enlisted back then or now did/do so for reasons other than political affiliation. Come to think of it, how many of us had any meaningful political leanings when we were 18 years old?
Then again, maybe my love of fly fishing gave me away. Some people see fly fishing as an elitist sport for doctor- and lawyer- types who wade around in outrageously expensive outfits casting about even more outrageously expensive bamboo fly rods while pontificating about the banality of bait fishing and the finer points of investing in REITs and REOCs – clearly a GOP past-time. Yet, Jimmy Carter comes to mind as the last presidential fly fisherman I can recall.
Perhaps my friend is clairvoyant. After all, she is quite the talented singer/songwriter. Or possibly, she just unwittingly struck a dissonant chord in my psyche. I am very uncomfortable being labeled a Republican or a Democrat for that matter. Neither party projects a positive image these days. I am not a fence-sitter though. If you force me to make a choice, I'll stand on the right side of the fence, a fact that begets neither pride nor shame for me as both feelings tend to cancel each other out. To be honest, I’m not all that comfortable with the analogy of sides of a fence. What fence? Like it or not, we’re all still in this beautiful primordial soup together.
For the record, I joined the Army right out of high school because I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and didn’t want to stick my parents with college tuition bills. I had to look up what REIT and REOC stood for (some kind of real estate investment mumbo-jumbo), and I don’t look down upon bait fishermen; although I do encourage the use of circle hooks when bait fishing whenever possible -- lower fish mortality. I know, not very Republican of me, is it?
A few weekends ago, a relatively new friend of mine, in a totally non-demeaning way, told me that I looked like a Republican. I was absolutely stunned, not so much by her seemingly keen perception (my political views do tend to be slightly right of center), but because I try to avoid all political discussions as fervently as a visit to the proctologist. My friend's revelation got me to thinking -- “How does one look like a Republican, or a Democrat, or any other political persuasion for that matter?”
Maybe she was guilty of a little innocent political profiling. After all, I suppose I match the stereotypical Republican demographic – married, middle-aged, male, with short hair (okay, bald) and a white-collar job. I guess someone could mistake me for a Limbaugh Head on that alone, but I suspect there is more to it than just appearance alone. Living in a blue state, I know plenty of married, middle-aged males with white-collar jobs that are Democrats -- some I consider very good friends.
Perhaps when recounting the Clinton/McCain meeting to my friend back in 2005, I (uncharacteristically) mentioned that I was not a big Hillary fan. She may have surmised that I couldn’t possibly be a liberal if I didn’t like Hillary. However, based upon the current presidential primaries, there appear to be a good number of liberals that do not care for Mrs. Clinton either.
My friend also knows that I served three years in the U.S. Army back in the mid 70’s. Heck, I actually enlisted right after the draft ended, not exactly the behavior one would attribute to a devout left-winged liberal. I suspect that most of the people who enlisted back then or now did/do so for reasons other than political affiliation. Come to think of it, how many of us had any meaningful political leanings when we were 18 years old?
Then again, maybe my love of fly fishing gave me away. Some people see fly fishing as an elitist sport for doctor- and lawyer- types who wade around in outrageously expensive outfits casting about even more outrageously expensive bamboo fly rods while pontificating about the banality of bait fishing and the finer points of investing in REITs and REOCs – clearly a GOP past-time. Yet, Jimmy Carter comes to mind as the last presidential fly fisherman I can recall.
Perhaps my friend is clairvoyant. After all, she is quite the talented singer/songwriter. Or possibly, she just unwittingly struck a dissonant chord in my psyche. I am very uncomfortable being labeled a Republican or a Democrat for that matter. Neither party projects a positive image these days. I am not a fence-sitter though. If you force me to make a choice, I'll stand on the right side of the fence, a fact that begets neither pride nor shame for me as both feelings tend to cancel each other out. To be honest, I’m not all that comfortable with the analogy of sides of a fence. What fence? Like it or not, we’re all still in this beautiful primordial soup together.
For the record, I joined the Army right out of high school because I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and didn’t want to stick my parents with college tuition bills. I had to look up what REIT and REOC stood for (some kind of real estate investment mumbo-jumbo), and I don’t look down upon bait fishermen; although I do encourage the use of circle hooks when bait fishing whenever possible -- lower fish mortality. I know, not very Republican of me, is it?
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