Speak for Yourself, John

I spotted this item today:

MSNBC - Six signs to watch in New Hampshire vote: "Dean and, to some degree, Kerry have a natural affinity for voters who went to Yale or Swarthmore, who have a household income of more than $150,000 a year, and who live in places like Peterborough or Hanover."

Speaking as a Swarthmore grad, but one short $150K a year by several digits and who lives a long way from Peterborough or Hanover...maybe the Yalies would vote for Kerry, but the classic Swarthmore voter would consider Dean a bit conservative and would be torn between Dean and Kucinich or Carol Mosely-Braun, that is when she or he isn't complaining about "the process".

' John Kerry woos a Peterborough voter.	' The infamously angry Howard Dean feels spurned.

What I find a little strange here -- has Swarthmore somehow hit the big-time as an establishment icon? L'il old Swarthmore, in the same breath as Skull and Crossbones Yale? Where the hell did that come from?

I'd really like to be informed if I've secretly become part of the controlling elitist cabal of society. There are some changes I'd like to make. Where's my union card?

Post Script

After posting the item above, I thought to myself -- well, what kind of a voting bloc would that be, anyway? Swarthmore's a small college, and I have a printed alumni directory of every living graduate.

Here's the totals:

Swarthmoreans living in Hanover: 29, at least two of whom are not citizens, and I'm pretty sure at least a few are Republicans and one is an anarchist.

Swarthmoreans living in Peterborough: 2

If we widen the demographic to the whole state: 164 Swatties, including one in New London, where my wife's family have a "place". (Uninsulated and unheated; I'm pretty sure that Yalies who "have a place" in New Hampshire have heat in said place.) I know the state pretty well, having hiked certain portions of it ad nauseum (meaning until I barfed due to the exertion) - what I was really surprised at was only two Swatties live in Nashua, given the outrageous real estate prices in Boston, but go figure. Hanover is the big expatriate mecca for fairly obvious reasons.

I think it may be a fair distinction to be made that if we are to divide the world into Yalies and Swatties, the Yalies pull all the levers of the machinery of secret government and the Swatties study it and occasionally write about it.