It's 24 weeks before the 2012 election and it really comes down to a race between the rednecks and hipsters.
The rednecks will vote Republican of course and the hipsters Democratic, and that's a problem for the Democratic Party. Hipsters have a reputation for laziness.
A big wave of rednecks swept America in 2010 and it looks like another swell is building. Mitt Romney got his full-fledged redneck baptism at Liberty University — a little Baptist water to chlorinate the Mormon — and that should be good enough.
So far there's been one big trial balloon floated to see if short, selected videos of black pastor Jeremiah Wright could be brought back to scare the bejesus into rednecks to get them agitated. But there is a redneck-targeted movie coming out in June called 2016: Obama's America that will have the same effect.
Rednecks suffer from having one type of brain, although it might be said that hipsters suffer from having another. A little more gray matter here and an less there. Rednecks like stability, simplicity and certainty. They are suspicious of or even hate people who are curious, different, and challenging. Hipsters are the opposites. Intellectual rednecks read David Brooks. Hipsters, Paul Krugman.
But rednecks tend to be dedicated and will get out to vote and hipsters may tend shrug the whole thing off. And that's the challenge for the Democratic Party.
"Diagnosing the Republican Brain" Mother Jones Fri Mar. 30, 2012 (Chris Mooney)
2016: Obama's Americacomments on g+