Do your demographic a favor — hug a pollster

A Republican friend (of course I have some — who ever heard of a liberal junket at Club Med?) recently pointed out that President Bush has done more to unite Americans across party lines than anybody since Washington ran twice unopposed.
As this GOP loyalist explained, if his fellow party members now wish the current president could run for re-election, it’s only so they could vote against him. So now the elephants are stuck with a candidate whose consistently anti-choice (look it up, people), pro-war, tax-cutting agenda is not conservative enough for the stalwarts.
How did the liberal media get away with the sick joke that labels Republican — that is, real American — states like Alaska, the “red” states, anyway? And where did those throngs of Democrats at last week’s Alaska caucuses come from? Did they really all spend the last 35 years tinkering with indoor grow lamps?
Well, if this election has the major parties confused by blurry identity lines, their strategists and pollsters do not lack for lines to play with. But as a flood of statistics tracks the Hispanic vote, the female vote, the black vote, the comb-over vote, the seniors, veterans, Christian evangelists and so on, I have to ask, What about us?
Although now in a shrinking minority, those of us who fit none of these hip categories deserve some attention. That’s why I decided to throw the power of the press behind a group that needs help getting its voice heard.
Pollsters have overlooked the short vote for too long.
Seeing the world from below five and a half feet gives us a keen perspective on the true grassroots. Yet they treat us as safe to ignore, as a voting block from the world of fantasy just like leprechauns or environmentalists.
But we are not fantasy, and in terms of electoral power, it would make more sense to aim campaign ads at us than in certain other directions. Hey, candidates even waste money courting the “youth vote,” which is — as we long suspected and the New Hampshire primary confirmed — the most blatant oxymoron in English next to “Internet security.”
Alas, it’s probably too early to field our own candidate. We vertically efficient Americans have not held the White House since James Madison (5’4” in high heels). Even Michael Dukakis — at 5’8” slightly shorter than Hillary — was at best a token.
Abe “The Stilt” Lincoln set the bar on height qualifications when he told us a man’s legs need only be long enough to reach the ground. It is hardly his fault that a sign now guarding the entrance to the Oval Office features a clown with his hand leveled six feet off the ground and the caption, “You must be this tall to undermine the Constitution, ruin our international credibility and incur record deficits.”
Maybe our time has not arrived just yet, but when Randy Newman’s bones are dust and all you other ethnic, gender and religious groups have blown your chances — look down.
Mirror copy editor Drew Herman would have been a giant in medieval Mongolia.