Word: effectiveness
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...Urkel effect has damaged most of the last generation of Democratic presidential candidates, so I figured I'd have its horrors explained by Michael Dukakis. "The guy I was running against was chewing on pork rinds during the campaign," said Dukakis. "I don't think George H.W. Bush had had a pork rind in his life. They did that number on me, and I did a much less effective job than Obama did. I was kind of the bloodless technocrat, right? If I had a nickel for every guy who said, 'You're nothing like the guy on television...
Former TIME reporter Benjamin Nugent, author of American Nerd: The Story of My People, is also worried about the Urkel effect, though he thinks Obama is less nerd than nerd-adjacent. These are the types of terms you have to endure when talking to the author of American Nerd: The Story of My People. "He would be the guy the jocks didn't choose to towel-snap, but he would kind of stand there looking disapproving while they towel-snapped. Whereas McCain would be more likely to towel-snap you, and Sarah Palin would make out with...
...find out how Obama can save himself before it's too late, I consulted the reigning geek of our time, John Hodgman, who plays PC in the Apple ads and wrote a new book called More Information Than You Require. Hodgman thinks that while the Urkel effect hurt Al Gore and John Kerry, America's lack of desire to drink even a malty Belgian beer with Obama will actually help him. "After eight years of jocklike bluster, Obama's technician's calm seems extra-attractive," says Hodgman, who believes that jocks vs. geeks has replaced red vs. blue...
Maybe Hodgman is right. Maybe Obama won't fall victim to the Urkel effect. Maybe, just as Seth Rogen has replaced Harrison Ford as a romantic-movie lead, our comic-book-loving, viral-video-sharing culture is replacing the blow-dried Mitt Romneys with the Jew-froed Al Frankens. Of course, it's also possible that while our society is ready to accept a black President, it still clings to a treasured stereotype: that all black people are cool and all nerds are white...
...believe the next Administration will have the ability to directly effect change in the economy, or will this economy shape the next Administration? Chris Hirsh, BERKELEY, CALIF...