How a personal candidate endorsement questionnaire should be filled out (with poll).
Sat Dec 08, 2007 at 03:57:14 PM PDT
I received an E-mail message earlier today, from a friend of mine whose husband is seeking re-election to office in the February 5 Illinois Democratic Primary, asking if I had "any creative ideas for these personal endorsement questions from the Chicago Sun-Times." The message also included the 15-item "Personal Questionnaire."
I assume I was asked to provide some assistance since I graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism back in the 1970s, and have been around the political block and have seen a few newspaper candidate questionnaires over the years. But I have to admit, I was stunned and appalled to realize these questions were being asked by a major newspaper in America's third-largest city. See for yourselves below the fold.
Here are the questions:
What’s your guilty pleasure?
Name your favorite restaurant.
If foie gras were legal, would you eat it?
What’s on your bedside table?
What’s on your iPod or portable music player?
What’s your favorite blog or podcast? If you don’t have either, what’s your favorite cable news program?
Who would portray you in a movie about your life? Who would play your nemesis?
What hobby do you have that doesn’t involve reading, writing or arithmetic?
Name your personal hero.
Name your all-time favorite actor.
Name the best pair of shoes you ever had.
Do you prefer Jay Leno or David Letterman? Why?
When was the last time you voted for a member of the opposition party?
Do you drive a hybrid car? If not, why not?
Do you have a handgun in your home? If so, why?
At virtually all levels of government here in Chicago, we see daily news stories about corruption, incompetence in government, battles over budgets that are turning into kindergarten class fights, and rising taxes and service cuts all over the place. And the Chicago Sun-Times includes this garbage in their candidate questionnaires? Give me a break!
Right now serious candidates do not have the time to fill out such tabloid crap. With the Primary having been moved from March 18 to February 5 (remember, unlike other states with a February 5 Presidential Primary, the Primary in Illinois is for all offices) are trying to squeeze in as many campaign appearances as possible over the next couple of weeks, before the Christmas and New Year's Day holidays and Chicago's awful January weather make it difficult to meet voters and interest them in the merits of your candidacy. Or do you really expect people to devote Super Bowl Sunday (February 3, just two days before the Primary) to learning about those running in the numerous down-ballot offices?
So since I am not running for any office (and thus have little to risk, unlike the actual candidates, who know too many voters rip out the newspaper endorsement list and bring it to the polls with them), I decided to take the opportunity to fill out this questionnaire myself:
What’s your guilty pleasure? Dreaming about winning the Pulizer Prize for public service to journalism, after hanging everyone who was responsible for this disgrace to the public and to journalism. I trust I have made my feelings clear.
Name your favorite restaurant. I am an underpaid Cook County employee (and have been for 28 1/2 years, as I am not part of the two or three favored Democratic ward organizations in town). There is a restaurant near my office at Juvenile Court that I do frequent, where I can get a decent sandwich at a low price. However, I won't embarass them by mentioning the names and address of the reastaurant in this sorry-assed questionnaire.
If foie gras were legal, would you eat it? I admit that I am a picky eater. Thus, I must confess I have never eaten foie gras, and never will, no matter what its legal status is. However, I would be more than happy to shove foie gras and a printed copy of the city ordinasnce banning it down the throat of that lying hypocrite who is my former Aldercritter, Joe Moore (49th). While his East Rogers Park neighborhood has been plaqued by increasing drug, crime and gang problems since Moore was first elected in 1991, he chooses to spend his time on non-issues as foie gras. What a disgrace!
What’s on your bedside table? As I mentioned earlier, I am an underpaid Cook County employee. I do not own a bedside table. Would you like to give me one?
What’s on your iPod or portable music player? See answer to the previous question.
What’s your favorite blog or podcast? If you don’t have either, what’s your favorite cable news program? The Daily Kos, where I trust its participants will be able to rip this questionnaire and the knuckleheads who created it to shreads.
Who would portray you in a movie about your life? Who would play your nemesis? I could care less about who is cast in those roles, so long as I can snag the rights to the concession stand in the theaters!
What hobby do you have that doesn’t involve reading, writing or arithmetic? My only hobby is philately - stamp collecting, which I have enjoyed since the age of 4. Obviously, this is a hobby that involves reading, writing and arithmetic (at least if you get to my level, where philatelic titles include serving as an officer of the oldest stamp club in coninuous operation in this nation, as Secretary of the Chicago Philatelic Society; as well as being Editor of the award-winning Chicago Philatelic Society Bulletin). It is unfortunate that your tabloid turns its nose away at a wholesome hobby like stamp collecting. Give a kid a starter stamp collection, and you don't have to worry about parts from China being recalled due to lead or cadmium (even China's stamps are lead-free). But why talk about philately, when you can plaster your pages about the latest drive-by shooting of some kid by a teen-aged gang-banger who can't shoot straight? Your paper disgusts me.
Name your personal hero. My father (God rest his soul). I'm just glad he never lived to see your newspaper deteriorate into a rag that produces such an asinine questionnaire (he passed away in 1974, when the Field family still ran the paper).
Name your all-time favorite actor. Sorry, I don't have one right now. Perhaps I will someday, should one of them be willing to give me big bucks for the rights to produce on screen the story of my life.
Name the best pair of shoes you ever had. Excuse me, but this is a really stupid question, even for this questionnaire. I have big feet (Size 15), so I don't have a lot of choice in shoes. You could do this town a must better service by doing a story on the problems men with big feet have getting in and out of the tiny back seat area of Chicago's taxis.
Do you prefer Jay Leno or David Letterman? Why? I couldn't help but notice you didn't include as a choice ABC's "Nightline." Would a news option overwhelm the minds of your readership? I think not.
When was the last time you voted for a member of the opposition party? Let's see, that would have been November 2006, when I voted for State Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka for Governor over Rod Blagojevich, and for Cook County Commissioner Tony Peraica for County Board President over Todd Stroger. If I recall, your rag endorsed Blagojevich and Stroger (your Stroger endorsement was likely a decisive factor in his narrow victory), and ever since you have been railing away against the numerous screw-ups committed by both men.
Do you drive a hybrid car? If not, why not? If I can't afford a bedside table, how the hell can I afford a car, hybrid or otherwise?
Do you have a handgun in your home? If so, why? In case you have forgotten, it is against the law to have a handgun in the house in Chicago, unless you are a law-enforcement offical or an Alderman. Besides, I confess; I'm a klutz. I don't ever want to get my fingers near a gun.
There you have it, fellow Kossacks. Your latest attempt by a tabloid (a shell of its former self) to query candidates for elective office. What was the most insulting question (to your intellengence) in the bunch? Make your choice in the poll below, then add your comments.
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