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March 05, 2008

Willy Weak's push poll

Should Willy Weak writer Beth Slovic ever decide that she needs extra cash she could always land a moonlighting job doing push polls if this is an example of her native talent for such unsavory things.

Ms. Slovic lifted a paragraph from a Merkley campaign email sent by Jeff's wife, Mary Sorteberg:

I will always remember a day last July before we decided to get into this race. I was on the phone talking about whether this was the right thing to do. Our daughter Brynne was in the kitchen and dropped a whole flat of blueberries. As I watched blueberries rolling all over the floor, I realized that Jeff was needed in Washington D.C. as much as I was needed in my kitchen.

Then Slovic posed four questions:
Is the statement:

a) sexist

b) an attempt to appeal to moderate female voters

c) tone deaf

d) sweet


Setting aside the seemingly self-evident fact that the messy chaos of blueberries rolling all over the floor was used as a metaphor for the messy chaos in our nation's capital, the real genius of Ms. Slovic's native talent for push polling is revealed by her question's multiple choice answers.

Sexist - How does one twist the perfectly normal and natural parental role of assisting or directing a child to clean up a messy accident into "sexist"? Would it somehow NOT be "sexist" to have just stood there? Or perhaps the fact that Mary Sorteberg even cared was the "sexist" part? Should Mary Sorteberg have left the mess unattended until Jeff came home (remember, she was talking to him on the phone when the blueberries were spilled) and demand that he clean up the mess?

An attempt to appeal to moderate female voters - Is Ms. Slovic suggesting that conservative and progressive mothers would just leave the mess on the floor?

Tone Deaf - Yeah... that one is one of the most profoundly ironic things I've ever read. I mean usually checkout line rag writers go for the absurd rather than project their own qualities upon someone else in such a blatently obvious way.

Sweet - Either this one is a case of Major League condescension and, dare I say, barely concealed contempt for a mother facing a mess or Ms. Slovic is suggesting that cleaning up a mess of blueberries might be considered "sweet"? WTF does "sweet" have to do with a a flat's worth of spilled blueberries on a kitchen floor?

Posted by Kevin at March 5, 2008 08:43 PM