One State, Two States, Red State, Blue States

Courtesy of the Carpetbagger Report, I see that there's a bold new entry in the laziest, sloppiest subgenre of political punditry.

No, no, I'm not talking about the Zombie Corpse of Larry King. According to the authorities, he's been cornered in a farmhouse in southeastern Iowa and is now being fed a steady diet of softball Tammy Fae Bakker interviews and, of course, braaaaaaaiiiinnnnsssss.

Instead, the hacktacular trend I'm talking about the lazy Red States vs. Blue States sofa sociology that David Brooks thinks he excels at. I don't know about you folks, but I'm so looking forward to his next book, Red Staters are from Mars, Blue Staters are from the Clenis.

Well, look out, Brooksie, because there's a new village idiot in town! Actually, three village idiots! (Hey, all appearances to the contrary, this kind of crap doesn't just write itself.) The authors in question are Douglas B. Sosnik, a strategist in the Clinton White House; Matthew J. Dowd, a strategist for Bush's two presidential campaigns; and journalist Ron Fournier. This Broad Squad has put their heads together to come up with their new map to America's political divisions, which they've witlessly called Applebee's America.

In what may be their only correct point, the authors argue that the red state vs. blue state model isn't really accurate when you consider that many states are actually a blend of the two. So instead, they focus on individual people, trying to figure out what "tribe" different sorts of people are in. And those tribes, they argue, are largely determined by the gut-level consumer choices we all make.

As proof of their thesis, they offer a quick, twelve-question quiz for readers to take and thereby bask in the warm embrace of their predictive brilliance.

Well, I just took it, and I'm thrilled to report that, with my score of 11 out of 12, I'm apparently a hard-core conservative Republican. Who knew? I mean, I followed all the steps, but I didn't think the conversion had taken hold.

From the comments over at TCR, I can see that I'm not alone. (Host Steve Benen also scored a Nigel Tufnel eleven.) I'm curious to see the inner selves of my co-bloggers and the people who accidentally wind up here while looking to purchase a Fleshlight.

The quiz is really simple and fast. You can take it in less than a minute, which is probably more time than the authors spent crafting it.