Gov. Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama tackle domestic policy issues during the first presidential debate on Oct. 3, 2012. Some rights reserved by Barack Obama.
I have a confession to make: I didn’t watch the two first presidential debates live. I did read the transcripts. And, in the case of the first debate between President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney, I looked at a recording of the debate a few days later, just to confirm that Obama’s performance was as poor as I had heard. (It was.) Needless to say, I gave the vice-presidential debate a pass. (I’m with John Nance Garner on the vice presidency. It isn’t worth a bucket of warm spit. And I’m not interested in grown men spitting.) I broke my streak by watching Monday’s presidential debate because it was on my own area of interest, foreign policy.
A number of my friends have been not so much outraged as baffled by my behavior. How could I not watch all the debates? And not just the debates, but the hours of analysis immediately afterwards? And the avalanche of articles and op-eds that appeared in the days that followed? Not to mention the endless interviews and roundtables and never-quite-final final words on cable news? I really had no response. There rarely is to obsession. (Try telling an Alabama football fan that Bear Bryant was not the greatest American since George Washington if you don’t believe me.) And obsession is what we’re talking about. These friends are political junkies addicted to the polls, the pundits and the parade of campaign ads that constitute the quadrennial circus known as a U.S. presidential election. They can be Democrats. They can be Republicans. They can even be independents. But they are all absolutely consumed by the minutiae of politics.
Some perspective is in order. In the great catalog of dubious human habits, an obsession with politics surely ranks low — well below cigarette smoking or riding a motorcycle without a helmet, for instance, and at about the same level as dressing up one’s pets for the holidays or line-dancing on weekends. Being a political junkie, in other words, is curious rather than sinister. My own habits are not exactly inspiring. Those evenings I took a pass on watching our presidential and vice presidential debates? I didn’t spend them rereading the Federalist Papers or installing cabinets for Habitat for Humanity. I was watching reruns of “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” in an effort to determine whether Vincent D’Onofrio or Jeff Goldblum is the most mannered actor in the history of American television. (Well, excluding William Shatner.)
Still, the political junkie is a fascinating social phenomenon. And, merely as a matter of self-knowledge, it might be useful for you to know whether you qualify as one. So, after some research (undertaken between further episodes of “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” — I’m leaning toward D’Onofrio on the basis of his impressive inventory of twitches), I’ve come up with a quiz.
You’re a political junkie if:
- Your home page is set to “Realpolitics.com.”
- You have ever once discussed a political candidate’s haircut (except Gov. Rick Perry’s).
- You know what a “cross-tab” is.
- You’ve played with an interactive electoral college map.
- You fantasize about being picked for a focus group.
- You’ve heard of Nate Silver, Frank Luntz or Charlie Cook. (Hint: They’re not The Three Stooges.)
- You know George W. Bush’s 2004 margin of victory in Ohio.
- You record episodes of Rachel Maddow or Bill O’Reilly. (If you record both, you should probably seek medical help.)
- You know that “Citizens United” is not a British soccer team.
- You actually understand anything Chris Matthews says.
Seven out of ten qualifies you as a political junkie. A perfect score moves you into that rarefied category of individuals who wake up wondering whether the day will bring a gaffe by Romney or Obama and go to sleep mulling over the latest swing state polls. You may let your work slip. You may ignore your spouse. You may forget your children’s names. You may even put your shoes on the wrong feet. But it will all be over — at least for a couple years — on Nov. 6. Me? I’ll still be watching “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” reruns.
Joe Barnes is the Baker Institute’s Bonner Means Baker Fellow. From 1979 to 1993, he was a career diplomat with the U.S. Department of State, serving in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.