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Red state express

Rory Sutherland

Tuesday, 4th March 2008

The GOP National Convention this year takes place in Minneapolis. At the back of the hall, half obscured by balloons and bunting, there may well be glimpsed a fat Briton holding a hand-scrawled placard reading “British eBay shoppers for a Republican victory”. That'll be me. For some years, I have been a heavy user of eBay.com, and at two dollars to the pound the practice makes better sense than ever. In the process I have noticed an almost infallible rule of thumb. Quite simply anything posted to the UK from red states will arrive much faster than anything originating from areas of “informed liberal opinion”. Buy something from Alabama or, best of all, Texas, and it's on your doorstep in three days. Buy it from Vermont or some other pinko haven and it will take months. Literally. We have some friends who live in the same street as Camille Paglia and their Christmas presents arrive in flipping February. I have no idea why this should be – perhaps their local postal service is so overloaded with subscription copies of Harper's magazine it has no time for my orders. Or perhaps the levels of gun ownership are simply far too low to create the necessary sense of urgency amongst postal workers. Any ideas?

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DougS

March 4th, 2008 7:56pm

Quick Idea: Red State (to an extent) means the South. The South means polite, responsible, sense of duty (In the military, there are so many kids from Miss., Al. and Ga. that they're called "MAGs.") Of course, as a good conservative, I'd say that conservatives have the kind of values that make for the swift delivery, i.e., honesty, efficiency, decency, competence, etc. I have to confess surprise, however, at the absolute uniformity you suggest, as well as the huge delays. Even 3 days versus, say, 6 days would be statistically significant, but months!? Anyway, I suspect it's just that conservatives are just better people, that's all!

Rory Sutherland

March 5th, 2008 12:45pm

It is only Camille Paglia's neighbours whose deliveries take months. But I largely agree with your theory.

Nuno

March 5th, 2008 4:24pm

Hold on... I'm continental european and maybe missing something. We I grew up, got used to identify the red states in europe as communist states,no? Maybe there's some USSR'ish executional influence on the red-states and they work like machines... The other possibility is some weird Swiss influence (red flag with a white cross) in which case we can say that there is an obsession with time...