I'm taking a class this semester, Presidential Politics: 2012, and my professor has structured it in such a way that we have a debate each week. On the first day of class, she counted us off, "one, two, one, two, one, two...."
She pointed to the side of the room by the door, "ones over here," and then to the opposite side of the room, "twos over here."
She looked at us for a moment, and then said, while bouncing her finger back and forth between the two groups, "Left, right. Democrats, Republicans. Obama campaign, Romney campaign."
Guess which side I was on.
The professor saw that I was in the Romney campaign group and she stifled a laugh, "Ohh, Norah!"
I've had this professor for a few other courses, all of which have been discussion based and related to politics. I'm a bit of a loud mouth, and I'm not very good at hiding my passion. I try to stay polite, but I get noticeably worked up when we're talking about something that I care about. It's fair to say that my professor knew this would a challenge for me.
I called my mom while walking to the bus stop after class. "I don't know how I'm going to do this. I mean, I have a pretty good idea what the arguments are, but I just don't know how I'm going to say them with a straight face."
My brilliant mother decided that what I needed was a fake identity. "Something WASPy," she said.
We decided on Muffy Fairbanks. Muffy wears pearls and summers in the Hamptons. She enjoys white liquors and dog shows, but her husband prefers Scotch and CNBC. Muffy signed up for "Women for Romney" emailing list. I imagine she is quite a lot like Lucille Bluth:
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I know this is terrible and that not all Republicans are rich WASPs, but they're the ones that I can understand. They're simply voting in their own best interest! I have a much harder time understanding Republicans who are low-income, or a person of color, or LGBTQ, or an immigrant, or, well, even a woman. I sometimes understand small pieces of it, like if you're a single-issue voter on abortion, but on a large scale I can't comprehend why people would vote for a candidate who is happy with them being second-class citizens.
Terrible or not, transforming into Muffy has helped me deal with being on the Romney campaign in this class. It's like acting - I don't have to believe what I'm saying, because I'm just playing a character. It must be working, too, because I'm pretty sure "my" side kicked ass in the debate. At one point, after I provided my "campaign manager" with a line about Medicare, my professor tapped me on the arm and said, with a smile, "You should be ashamed of yourself."
Well, I would've been, but Muffy was damned pleased.
