Registration Dives

Put this together with the Howard Stern fans, and you might get a whole new voting bloc:

Patrons at about 75 Wisconsin strip clubs are being asked to forget about the barely dressed, gyrating dancers long enough to register to vote.

Club owners are posting signs, handing out forms and even providing envelopes and stamps -- anything to get customers to register….

The adult entertainment industry hopes to sway the 2004 presidential election, saying President Bush's conservative agenda threatens their livelihood and jeopardizes the First Amendment.

"Under the Bush administration, the industry has already taken a serious step backward," said Angelina Spencer, an Ohio club owner and executive director of ACE, a national trade organization of adult night clubs that has 700 members and represents more than 3,800 clubs.

Comments

[shanep]

A stripper pack PAC?

[Dan]

Why didn't the industry rally like this when Larry Flynt ran in the CA recall election? If they had, maybe Flynt might have won.

Because Flynt was a loon with no chance in hell of winning, and Schwarzenegger was a pro-porn candidate with an excellent chance of winning.

[Mark S.]

I agree that Dubbya and his cronies aren't a friend to the erotic entertainment industry, but it does beg the question of whether Kerry would be any friendlier?

[Shannon Love]

fyodor,

I agree with you but I think it's a matter of degree. I know people who work in journalism (the actual journalist not say press operators) they always talk about "the business side" of their organization. They have a considerable insulation from the nuts and bolts of running the actual business. They don't deal with such building codes, employee regs or anything like a normal business person would.

I am struck that when I talk to people who are thinking about starting a business like a store, they talk extensively about all the government hoops they have to jump through but when I talk to journalist, artist of many types, academics etc, they rarely mention any government requirements on their work at all.

For most business people, the government is a constant intrusion where as for those in communication related fields it's an exception. I think this might have an influence on how people in those fields view certain aspects of government power.

[Herman]

There is probably a considerable overlap between Stern fans and strip club patrons. Back when I was listening Howard made it sound like he was going every day.

[fyodor]

Shannon,

Okay, perhaps I took you too literally when you spoke of "industries" in your first post. Certainly people who don't have to actually run a business have the luxury of not knowing the realities that businesses face and the harm that regulations do. Ignorance is bliss, and all that. Personally, I suspect political ideology is more determined by "differential association," i.e., all my friends are this way or that, and so I am too. But perhaps the phenomenon you're addressing is the kind of thing that's gotten the ball rolling in that particular direction. Although here's a little anecdote that could be interpreted either way. Among my many hardcore liberal/leftist friends is this one who was all gung-ho for Nader in 2000, who is also a small time publisher. But when she heard that Nader wanted to raise the minimum wage, she lamented the harm this would do to independent bookstores! Nothing like a reality interface to deflate those high sounding ideals!! Of course she didn't for a moment give up her hardcore support of Nader......

[Phil]

Gee, I would've gone with "shayke" or some other Humorously Archaic Spelling had I known the pedants would be in Ye Olde House.

[fyodor]

James Madison would be proud!

[George]

Screw Madison. What would Benjamin Franklin say.

[Phil]

He'd say, "Shaketh thy monie-maker, yon fine-looking wench!"

[Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA)]

I'll be handling the voter registration drive at Chippendales!

[garym]

No, Franklin would know that "shaketh" is the third-person form of the verb.

[thoreau]

Smut peddlers of the world unite!

Why didn't the industry rally like this when Larry Flynt ran in the CA recall election? If they had, maybe Flynt might have won.

[Shannon Love]

"President Bush's conservative agenda threatens their livelihood and jeopardizes the First Amendment"

Viewed through the lens of economics, the First Amendment in effect prevents the government from "regulating" certain "industries." If you produce something that falls under the broad legal definition of speech, then the government has little authority to regulate what you make or how you sell it.

I wonder if this explains the Leftward tilt of many speech related professions such as journalism or academics. For them, government interference in one's livelihood is something that happens to other people. They develop a very positive attitude about government power (at least in regards to economics) because they themselves never experience it directly. The First Amendment has created for them a Libertarian paradise.

[dhex]

franklin would be too busy pinching to notice tense.

[fyodor]

Shannon, that sounded plausible till I thought about it. Communications industries still pay taxes, still work in buildings regulated by building codes and zoning laws, etc. And as oppressive as the government has gotten, do most businesses really suffer government interference in their actual product? So I doubt that communications businesses suffer any less regulation than the average business, and as this drive shows, often times more.

I think you're missing the obvious. In the communications industry, the threat of government interference (which would potentially go above and beyond what other businesses suffer) is warded off by appeals to the 1st Amendment, a factor unavailable to most businesses. This is somewhat related to the point you made, except that communications industries don't really escape regulation or live in a libertarian paradise.

[Benjamin Franklin]

Yo, babe, check out the bills I'm stuffing in your panties. See the guy in the picture? Notice any resemblance?