By now, most of you have heard of "South Park Republicans", the

name stems from the primetime cartoon "South Park" that clearly demonstrates the contrast within the party. The show is widely condemned by some moralists, including members of the Christian right. Yet in spite of its coarse language and base humor, the show persuasively communicates the Republican position on many issues, including hate crime legislation ("a savage hypocrisy"), radical environmentalism, and rampant litigation by ambitious trial lawyers.

But, I think that Ace (and, by the way, if Ace did have a cable channel, I'd be subscribing right along with James) has stumbled on the South Parkers liberal equivalent, who I will dub the "Pretty in Pink Democrats". These Democrats are joined together, not through their passionate belief in any particular issue, but by their hatred of the rich and a love of their own precious "alternativeness". Says Ace:

People vote against whatever party seems more comfortable with the sort of people who gave them grief (real or imagined) as teenagers. For every Blaine from Pretty in Pink that exists in the real world, there are now a dozen committed liberals. Thanks a lot for that, Blaine. Maybe if you hadn't been such a prick to Ducky we wouldn't have had to suffer through two terms of Clinton.

I know more than a few Pretty in Pink Democrats. All they ever learned about conservatives, they learned from John Hughes movies in the 1980s. The affluent are "rich assholes". And, unlike their South Park brethren, Pretty in Pinkers don't think of conservatives as advocates of smaller government and personal liberty, but rather as enforcers of conformity and censorship. To them, conservatives are the Blaines, the Neidermeyers and the cruel fathers in every teen movie from Footloose to Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Pretty in Pink Democrats will vote for Kerry (if they bother to vote at all), not because he represents their deeply held political beliefs, but rather because being a liberal is just another part of their urban culture, like buying organic food, listening to jam bands or bitching about the number of Starbucks in the neighborhood.