What five words would you use to describe Dems or GOPers?

Expect plenty of disagreement. Just keep it civil.
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MK
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What five words would you use to describe Dems or GOPers?

Postby MK » Fri Nov 09, 2007 8:25 am

A friend of mine put this together for the AP, and it got picked up by ABC News, among other places. She's going to do a follow-up story, which will include comments posted on the YouTube page hosting the video. Basically, she wants you to describe Democrats or Republicans in five words. SO....if you have a youtube account, click on the link below and post away.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=C-xRYqIT_4M
"When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war." – Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Neither slave nor tyrant." - Basque motto

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lukpac
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Postby lukpac » Fri Nov 09, 2007 11:54 am

Cool. I happened to spot the AP article about this in the paper this morning.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gNSD ... QD8SPLDJG1

Young Say: What's Democrat, Republican

By KELLY MAHONEY and RACHEL ZAHORSKY – 22 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Visions of Republican elephants and Democratic donkeys are out. Today's young adults don't think red or blue either when they describe the two major political parties.

To them, Democrats and Republicans are about bleeding hearts, no souls, opportunity for the future.

A YouTube video posted Thursday by Medill News Service catalogues an informal political attitude check of 18- to 29-year-olds, and invites their input on the Internet.

There's plenty of attitude — with descriptions like "dead weight," "gay bashing" and "my parents" among the responses. Young viewers can post their own short films at http://youtube.com/watch?vC-xRYqIT_4M.

The initial participants — two dozen young people who were stopped on the sidewalks of Washington, D.C. — were asked to play a simple word game: Blurt out the first five things that come to mind when hearing the word Republican, then Democrat.

The off-the-cuff interviews sparked references to economic status, geographic locations, race and moral character — or lack thereof — to describe the parties.

"Moral" and "closed-minded" were among the adjectives used to describe Republicans. Democrats were pegged as "liberal" and "elitist."

Daniel Hoefling, a 19-year-old politically unaffiliated student from Glastonbury, Conn., used the word "bleeding" to describe the Democratic Party. Allison DeMartino, a 21-year-old politically independent student from Hopewell Junction, N.Y., said Democrats "need to get their act together."

Laura Minicucci, a 21-year-old independent from Syracuse, N.Y., said Democrats have led a "pathetic Congress" and Republicans are "closed-minded."

Others associated a specific person with a party. Democrat Martha Hanna, 18, of Buffalo, N.Y., said former White House political adviser "Karl Rove" when asked to respond to Republican. Marissa Friedman, 22, of Denver, an independent employed in marketing, said "Bill Clinton" for Democrat.

The 2008 presidential candidates, especially Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, were frequently named.

Many participants had trouble finding words to describe the parties. Democrat Nick Marino, 21, of Atlanta, said he tries to avoid stereotyping them. "Parties are really only important around election time," he said.

"I think it's generally a cool idea to do the word association," said Peter Levine, director of the Maryland-based Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. "Essentially you're trying to go a little bit deeper into people's thinking."

Any negativity in the quotes is typical and not likely to change, Levine said.

"It's been going on for generations," he said, "but that doesn't mean people won't vote."
"I know because it is impossible for a tape to hold the compression levels of these treble boosted MFSL's like Something/Anything. The metal particulate on the tape would shatter and all you'd hear is distortion if even that." - VD

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MK
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Postby MK » Sun Nov 11, 2007 7:28 am

Haha, awesome! It's kinda cool picking up the paper and saying, "Hey! My friend(s) wrote that!"

As it says on the YouTube page, the video was done by Emily Wood - she did it in conjunction with the story's two writers, but not in collaboration with them, hence no credit on the print side.
"When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war." – Dwight D. Eisenhower



"Neither slave nor tyrant." - Basque motto