STARTING 4/8/17: Six Word Saturday is now being hosted by the lovely Debbie at Travel With Intent.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Political Evil

Last week, I actually answered the phone even though the caller id displayed a number I didn't recognize. Almost always a mistake. This time, they were conducting a survey regarding an local election and since I was avoiding my advertising assignment was taking a brief break, I agreed to participate.

The first question wanted to know my registered voting affiliation, Republican or Democrat. Nope! Independent.

Next she asked if I was familiar with the candidates running for whatever office in this here district. I said no. Hey, I'm not going to lie!

The next question(s) wanted me to say the first thing that comes to mind when she read me the names of the two candidates. Which, of course, I've slightly camouflaged here to protect the innocent my undisclosed location.

First up: Graydon Carson.
Response: Sounds like a stage name.

The opponent: Keith Pinion.
Response: Pinion makes me think of minion so maybe he's evil.

There was a definite pause at that point.

When she finally continued, I tried to be not quite so free-thinking in my honesty but lucky for us both most of the remaining questions required number answers. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the least likely and 10 being the most likely, how would I rate the following statements. Boring! And since I know nothing about either, I'll admit I answered almost every one of these with a 5.

The last bit used the same scale of 1 to 10 but my response was to indicate how that statement would influence my likeliness to vote for that candidate. There were a lot of these but I'll just share my two favorites, which came near the middle of the list, one right after the other:
  1. Keith Pinion continued to strongly support (some corrupt political guy) even after he was charged and then admitted to his role in (some really evil plot to bring down the universe).
  2. Graydon Carson loves trees.

Seriously. So I guess I was right in thinking that Pinion = minion and evil. And after a bit of post-call research, turns out it also means Republican. Draw your own conclusions. ;)

As you can see, my opinion really helped them a lot. I'm sure my valuable input will really help shape the campaign and conduct of the candidates in question.

P.S. I actually take my voting very seriously. Before voting in any election, I do some research and make an informed decision rather than casting votes based on just party affiliation or random word association. Because THAT only works when picking my NCAA tourney brackets.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

I love your answers for the free name association. That is great. I am not sure I would have been so brave but I would have been thinking something similar.

I hate campaigning time. The ads. The yard signs. The lies. Makes me want to barf.

C. Beth said...

What an entertaining survey! It's fun when it suddenly becomes really obvious who's funding it.

When you see a TV commercial that refers to "Keith Pinion and his minions" you can do the Snoopy dance and know that you affected the American political landscape.

Monica Manning said...

I love your 'honesty' in answering the questions! It seems obvious that Carson's team was asking the questions. Why else would he be made out as a tree hugger and Pinion an evil mobster?

Tami said...

Oh, never fill your NCAA tournament bracket by random word association. You must consider the school's colors, number of cheerleaders, and ALWAYS pick team that start with B.

The Brown Recluse (TBR) said...

I think she changed her mind about asking the other discussion questions. I loved the answers, though. :)

Toriz said...

What gets me is... If people don't want the first thing that springs to mind when they say something... Why do they ask for it? I mean, she didn't seem happy with your answers in that section... I thought there were no wrong answers in things like these? ;)

Lifeofkaylen said...

I hate politics. Everything about it. It's all just so slimy and fake. I don't know how it could work any differently-it's really just a big popularity contest.