Asymmetrical Information

That ranks up with the

"NO BLOOD FOR OIL"

bumper sticker I saw on a Dodge Durango (I guess at least it was not a Hummer).

What's the rabidly Democratic hometown: Princeton? Trenton? East Brunswick?

1998 was the last year I cast a vote in NJ-12, and I have some partisan pride in helping to end Mike Pappas's political career.

Heh. My favorite car-and-sticker combo lately was on this IMMENSE SUV: by Lexus, no less. I've no idea what the model was, but I'm guessing you can't touch it for less than 50 grand.

It had a "Kerry '04" bumper sticker. I only wish I'd had my camera! :-)

I guess that the progressive spirit is manifested in the "Vote Libertarian" sticker.

Partly, it is an indication that people can change their mind about their political views. Perhaps the high correlation between old Volvo station wagons and left and center-left politics might have been true at the time they bought the 240 DL, but like James Lileks and others, they may have moved to the right in response to events.

That happened to me. I was raised as a liberal Republican in Southwestern Michigan (My parents worked on Nelson Rockefeller's campaign in 1968). I attended art school in Ann Arbor in 1965-1968. I saw a free Grateful Dead concert on the grass at a park.

I voted for Eldridge Cleaver in 1968, John Anderson in 1980, and Ron Paul in 1988.

I was an enlisted man in the Navy from 1970 to 1975 and then was an officer from 1975 to 1981.

One morning in September 1980, I took my son in to swimming practice in my black shirt, tie, and trousers, with my Lieutenant bars on the shirt, and a retired Navy captain who cleaned the pool to help out, told me that we had tried to rescue the hostages and failed.

I have to say that I took my son home after practice and wept, before I went to work. That was probably the thing that really changed my political philosophy.

I also started running around with these people from the Southeast in early 1992, and I listened to what they had to say about faith and pride in our country.

Anyway, people change, and you can't predict in what ways. All you can do is observe the signs (in this case, bumper stickers).

Regards,

Jim Bender

http://dreadnought-cruisers.blogspot.com/

http://anglo-dutch-wars.blogspot.com/

http://kentishknock.com/

You're in Middlesex County?

I drive a Volvo wagon with a Bush/Cheney sticker on it, and thought I would be a standout in decidedly non-conservative Northern Virginia. Surprised to see others out there, though, they are all newer like mine - don't think I've seen them on 240 wagons.

1) My parents have always owned Volvos.
2) They would fire depleted uranium shells at you if you asked them to donate to Greenpeace.

I've got a "Bush-Cheney" bumper sticker on my car right along with my "Darwin Fish" plaque.

Perhaps there is a limit to what a person's taste in automobiles (clothing, hairstyle, music, etc.) can reliably tell you about their politics

Megan...

O/T: You may know me from my brilliant comments on LittleGreenFootballs. Well, I finally took the plunge and started a new blog after I was booted from DemocraticUnderground. I guess I needed a place to blow off steam. Feel free to swing by my modest effort and tell me what you think. I don't get very many comments and I'm starting to wonder if I'm doing something wrong. Feedback from someone as talented as yourself would be very helpful. It's obviously still very much a work in progress and I welcome any input.

jheka

Megan...

O/T: You may know me from my brilliant comments on LittleGreenFootballs. Well, I finally took the plunge and started a new blog after I was booted from DemocraticUnderground. I guess I needed a place to blow off steam. Feel free to swing by my modest effort and tell me what you think. I don't get very many comments and I'm starting to wonder if I'm doing something wrong. Feedback from someone as talented as yourself would be very helpful. It's obviously still very much a work in progress and I welcome any input.

jheka

Megan...

O/T: You may know me from my brilliant comments on LittleGreenFootballs. Well, I finally took the plunge and started a new blog after I was booted from DemocraticUnderground. I guess I needed a place to blow off steam. Feel free to swing by my modest effort and tell me what you think. I don't get very many comments and I'm starting to wonder if I'm doing something wrong. Feedback from someone as talented as yourself would be very helpful. It's obviously still very much a work in progress and I welcome any input.

jheka

Mindles,

Good to have you back photoblogging. I'll keep a lookout for this one.

There is a silver Mercedes SUV in town with a bumper sticker that alleges that "The best things in life aren't things." True, but I'm guessing that the sticker afixer didn't notice the irony.

Hi Fives for finding a Bill Spadea voter!

I wonder if there is a market for "Dick F. Y. Cheney" bumper stickers. Something like:

george W bush
   dick F Y cheney

Seems you could sell them to just about anyone.

Jack: But money is unimportant only to the well-off. If you've got to choose between eating and heat for the house in December, money is pretty damned important. If you can write a check for a new Mercedes, you can afford to think about non-material values.

Of course, the average Mercedes owner is probably even more worried about the car loan, the mortgage, and so on than poor families are about their rent and bills. Wise people can live well at incomes barely above the poverty line, idiots can get in trouble with 10 times as much income. So the question is, is the owner of that Mercedes a really rich wise person, or an idiot pretending to be wise?

Why would you raise money for GreenPeace?

I suppose a bumper sticker with the preferred candidate's name is tolerable ("Nixon: Now, more than ever"; "Carter: Why not the best?"), but the prospect of actually having a conversation with someone who thinks their political philosophy or metaphysics is fit for summation on a sticky piece of paper measuring 4" x 10", designed to be read from a distance of 20 feet, really strikes me as unpalatable. I avoid these sorts, from whatever perpspective, like mayonnaise-slathered potato salad that has been sitting in the July sun for 7 hours.

The real question is, why is there a correlation between Volvos and leftism? (And, to a lesser extent, Subarus?)

I mean, I'm pretty far from being a leftist (though I'm not exactly a dogmatic rightist, either), but I wouldn't mind a 242. (Though I'd prefer a 164 or 122, or even a 544.)

My most recent funny bumper sticker story: Just yesterday I noticed a car with a John Kerry sticker on it. Upon closer inspection I realized it was pasted over a Howard Dean sticker.

My favorite bumper sticker of all time (and probably the most vicious of them all):

Au + H2O = U235

Oh, what innocent days those were (1964), before the country became so divided....

Perhaps there is a limit to what a person's taste in automobiles (clothing, hairstyle, music, etc.) can reliably tell you about their politics

Do you dislike David Brooks as much as I do?

What does your sticker mean, DBL?

The sticker translates, by way of the periodic table; gold + water = uranium 235. While not chemically accurate, it does play into certain drummed-up fears about a presidential candidate.

The only time I've seen a "No War For Oil" sticker and didn't have to stifle the impulse to ram the car, it was pasted on a Prius. The bumper sticker on my 38/42 mpg Honda reads: "No War for Oil? Sell Your SUV!" It goes over well in Union/Essex county, let me tell you...

Au + H2O = U235

While not chemically accurate...

Not sure if Will is joking or not. Yeah, that's not chemically accurate in much the way the Empire State Building is not built out of gingerbread and marshmallow fluff.

It's a clever political phrase, but has nothing to do with chemistry or physics.

"The real question is, why is there a correlation between Volvos and leftism? (And, to a lesser extent, Subarus?)"

Sensible, safe, slightly boring, reliable cars, more expensive than a regular car, but not ostentatiously so. Maybe this psychographic/market segmentation would help (http://www.sric-bi.com/VALS/types.shtml); volvos would go into the "thinker" psychodemographic.

The comments from the "jheka" posting above are from my stalker. Please see this thread for a little background on it and delete its comments when you get a chance. Thanks.

Funniest bumpersticker co-incidence that I've seen:
at a coffeehouse in Ashland, OR, in the parkinglot.
A Honda Insight (hybrid) with "Vote Libertarian" plus various geeky stickers (ARRL, Linux).
Parked right next to it, a 1970's vintage VW mini-bus (with poetry painted on the side, no less) with Nader/LaDuke 2000 and various green party and enviro stickers. (This is amusing if you happen to know how the pollution outputs of those two vehicles compare.)

Comments are Closed.