Dancing With the Tea Party

I had to steal this title from a blog I've recently encountered about the Bristol Palin debate that has been going on lately. Bristol Palin, a contestant on Dancing With the Stars, is now a part of the final 3 couples on the show, despite receiving the lowest scores of all the couples for the past few weeks. The scores come from judges who all have professional dance training and background, but the votes come from the adoring public. As the loyal fans of DWTS watched Brandy (of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella) get voted off after getting the best scores consistently for many weeks before that, they started wondering if there was something going on "behind the scenes". In blog posts (link) and news articles (link), people have suggested a glitch in the DWTS voting system, or even an unjust Tea Party takeover. The Tea Party, which I mentioned in my last post, consists of the "new" Republicans, such as Sarah Palin. And it just so happens that her daughter is a competitor on DWTS. Hmm...

I actually don't watch this show, but my mom does, and religiously. I used to watch it with her a little but I got sick of watching the judges judge great dancers harshly and poor ones really leniently. But many of the people blogging about this situation don't watch the show, just like me. It's not about who deserves to win, it's about questioning the ethics of a group of politicians who have possibly been rigging the voting system in order to make a political statement in support of Sarah Palin. The accusation is that Tea Party followers have been entering false email accounts into the voting forms on the DWTS website in order to vote more than once for Bristol. But others say that this is allowed because they don't state any rules limiting how many times you can vote for a contestant. I found the rules and regulations myself on the website and it stated that you may vote through text, email, or phone call only 5 TIMES. While I largely suspect that there was some ballot-stuffing going on, James Poniewozik of Time Magazine makes a good point: "The show is called Dancing With the Stars. Not, say, Dancing With the Dancers." This show is meant to be a popularity contest, not based on solely who is the best and strongest dancer of the group. And doesn't this remind you of our country's political system, in a way?

The results of DWTS will be revealed tonight on the final episode of the season...may the best politician's daughter win.