STERN VS. BUSH: According to blogger Jeff Jarvis, Howard Stern has backed off his previously stated admiration for President Bush, and now says he is unlikely to vote for Bush's re-election. Stern cited Bush's positions on abortion and stem-cell research as the key reasons for his shift, in addition to threats of censorship from Bush's FCC.
This is potentially huge news, if Bush has alienated the "Stern vote"- and I'm not just speaking of people who literally listen to Stern. Coming from any geographical and socioeconomic walk of life, the Stern voter is a guy who is generally secular, pro-free speech, pro-sex, but anti-PC, and turned off by both the parochialism and prudery of the right and the condescension of the left. I've referred to this segment of the population before as "horny libertarians," and their views are given voice by Stern, "South Park," and various other quarters of pop culture, yet by almost no one in politics, with the once-in-a-lifetime exception of the first Stern voter president, Bill Clinton.
You keep hearing about these "NASCAR dads" as the big swing voters for '04, but I don't imagine the Democrats have any shot at those guys. The Stern voters, on the other hand, are very much up for grabs- and if Bush can't get them in his column, he could be in trouble.