ELECTION 08: Palin adds Molly, Chuck and Jane to rollcall of demographic stereotypes

Demographic catch-alls are a wonderful thing, if only for the images they create in Joe Public’s mind. Take Joe the plumber, mentioned 20 times in the third presidential debate – he was neither Joe, nor a plumber. He was, however, completely bedazzled by all the press attention. In a scene that will no doubt be enshrined in retrospective absurdity, ‘Joe’ (aka Samuel) held a press conference at which he made this astonishing admission:

‘I’m not Matt Damon.’

Quite. Matt Damon is also different to how he appears – despite being the star of the latest video-game-to-film franchise, Max Payne, ‘Matt the actor’ is also one of a small cadre of celebrities campaigning for good, clean toilets. So maybe he and Joe the plumber have more in common than Joe thought – if he were a plumber, that is. Like Transformers, there is more to demographics than meets the eye; but it’s a good starting point, certainly for comedy.

Sarah Palin, recently interviewed by CNN, came out with some more rather fabulous prompts for conjuring voter types. We had:

-Molly the dental hygienist
-Chuck the teacher
-Jane the engineer

All good, solid-sounding American names – and 2-to-1 female. But what about the minorities? Who is representing Leroy the barber, Muhammad the street-sweeper, Jaswinder the taxi driver or Jorge the illegal immigrant? Wide open minorities my friends, wide open.

Still, the king of categorising the rank and file will always be Monty Burnsin The Simpsons – names such as Joe Meatball, Eddie Punchclock, Johnny Lunchpail and Sally Housecoat conjure broader, truer images than Joe the plumber ever could. (Even if they do belong in the 1920s.)