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How the peculiar political culture of Austin, Texas, infected the presidential race.
Austin
"For a while I thought about moving to Atlanta," Jeff Lewis was saying, "but then I realized the Austin connection, being here, gives us a kind of special edge, and we really, really didn't want to lose that sort of, I don't know, allure. I mean, other people do what we do, but we're here, right in this man's backyard."
Jeff is barefoot and ear-ringed and prefers black-today it's black jeans under a flyaway black linen shirt, unbuttoned to the sternum. With his business partner Bill Callan, he is founder of "Two Unemployed Democrats Co." an Internet and mail-order business that not long ago, in response to popular demand, opened an outlet store in Austin, the state capital of Texas. They sell bumper stickers, T-shirts, lawn signs, refrigerator magnets, and coffee mugs dedicated to a single, timely proposition: George W. Bush is (1) an incompetent moron driving America into a ditch; (2) an evil genius bent on having America run the world; (3) a plutocrat; (4) a puppet of corporate America; (5) a Machiavel; (6) a dupe of Karl Rove, who's a Machiavel; (7) a cynic whose every utterance is a lie; and (8) a daddy's boy who can barely talk. Hold the email: I am aware that technically this counts as more than one single, timely proposition. But that's what happens when you spend enough time in Austin with people who are obsessed with George Bush. The strands of contempt all begin to run together.
The Two Unemployed Democrats outlet store is set implausibly in the middle of a residential neighborhood in south Austin, which is, if anything, even funkier and more self-consciously cool than north Austin. On the porch, customers are greeted by one of those inflatable punching dolls, the kind with a rounded bottom that helps it pop back up when you smash it, smash it, smash it angrily about the head. The face on the doll is a particularly horrid caricature of Bush. At his side he holds a "to-do" list, with each item checked off: "Give rich friends more tax breaks. . . . Deceive American people. . . . Attack civil liberties. . . ."