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Why Game-Show Hosts Vote Republican

He’ll take Michael Steele for $2,000, Alex.

With this, he cemented his place in one of the conservative movement’s most elite and rarefied constituencies: right-wing game-show hosts.

on the right when it comes to solving America’s problems.—Eds]

Sajak alone has given more than $10,000, including fat checks to Fred Thompson, Bob Dole, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, George Allen, and Rick Lazio, as well as Steele. Alex Trebek, host of Jeopardy!, gave $3,000 to former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

“I am a conservative thinker. My political choices usually follow that path,” says John O’Hurley (left), a former host of Family Feud who donated more than $2,000 to Giuliani’s 2008 presidential campaign. “I am a strong believer in individual responsibility both in the quality of my actions and in setting the direction for my life.”

O’Hurley’s fellow hosts, like all successful television personalities, are loath to risk alienating even one possible viewer by talking openly about anything controversial.
Is there something about the traditional game-show format—its reinforcement of old-fashioned family values, its populist sensibility, its neat 22-minute crystallization of the American dream—that draws a more conservative type to host? Is it that the show’s core audience, residing in the flyover states, generally prefers a certain red-blooded sort of man in charge? Is it all just a silly coincidence?
“It makes sense to me that these hosts are pretty heavily Republican,” said Olaf Hoerschelmann, a professor at Indiana University, author of Rules of the Game: Quiz Shows and American Culture and perhaps the world’s leading (“only,” in his words) expert on game shows. “To have the right sensibility to be a game-show host, you do have to have a belief in rugged individualism—either you make it or you’re not worth it.” 

Game Show Hosts

Hoerschelmann’s research showed that these programs—while never exactly rocket science—grew precipitously less intellectual and more populist in the early 1980s, in tune with the Reagan years. With the exception of Jeopardy!, popular shows increasingly tested not actual knowledge but everyman intuition, he says. Family Feud, for example, challenged contestants to guess what 100 randomly surveyed people on the street would say in response to some hypothetical question.Supermarket Sweep had them run around a grocery store.

Wink Martindale operates Wink’s World, which attempts to spread a patriotic message—and many own a piece of their shows.

Trebek (right), a Canadian by birth who became an American citizen in 1998, was listed as a host for a February 2010 fundraiser in Malibu, hosted by the PAC Combat Veterans for Congress, supporting 18 Republican candidates. A spokesman for Trebek said the host “didn’t actually do that,” and that “My guess is that they asked to use his name, and since veterans were involved and he’s worked for years with the USO, there might have been some confusion. But he did not attend, or host, or sponsor. “

Sajak—whose first National Review Online column asserted that since “none of my family and friends is allowed to appear on Wheel of Fortune,” government employees shouldn’t be allowed to vote—declined, through the magazine, to comment. Carey also declined to comment, through a spokesman. The other hosts did not respond to repeated requests.

“To have the right sensibility to be a game-show host, you do have to have a belief in rugged individualism—either you make it or you’re not worth it,” says Professor Hoerschelmann.

O’Hurley, who listed his primary extracurricular interests as his wife and child, is involved with a company called Energy Inc., that processes landfill waste into energy, and is a founder of a charity called Golfers Against Cancer. He’s not one to trumpet his politics.

Rebecca Dana is a senior correspondent for The Daily Beast. A former editor and reporter for The Wall Street Journal, she has also written for The New York Times, The New York Observer, Rolling Stone, and Slate, among other publications.

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COMMENTS (BE WARNED, SOME ARE ASININE, AS USUAL)

Mauiboy

(2)

2:25 pm, Nov 1, 2010

eurydice9276

3:10 pm, Nov 1, 2010

Matt Gilliland

3:15 pm, Nov 1, 2010

His Excellency

5:15 pm, Nov 1, 2010

TeddyKGB

2:38 am, Nov 1, 2010

10:20 pm, Nov 1, 2010

drstevebrule

i think jeopardy is like capitalism but wheel of fortune is obviously socialism. and that makes who wants to be a millionaire fascism, and tic tac toe a theocracy.

12:04 am, Nov 2, 2010

whipmawhopma

8:23 am, Nov 2, 2010

nycwerewolf

11:35 am, Nov 1, 2010

His Excellency

nycwerewolf: If Hagel is your favorite Republican you are a liberal Democrat. Enjoy your day tomorrow.

5:16 pm, Nov 1, 2010

12:01 pm, Nov 1, 2010

saskia520

12:24 pm, Nov 1, 2010

Pooner

1:01 pm, Nov 1, 2010

lillymckim

1:32 pm, Nov 1, 2010

Dylan111

9:11 pm, Nov 1, 2010

co-intheknow

3:38 pm, Nov 1, 2010

martymartymarty

Jeez, disrespect your mother (and seniors in general) much?

5:23 pm, Nov 1, 2010

webcommoner

All crash-and-burn political losers. Stick to your day job, Sajak.

4:08 pm, Nov 1, 2010

MistyKnight

4:18 pm, Nov 1, 2010

martymartymarty

5:22 pm, Nov 1, 2010

vercingetoriz473

OF COURSE they are Republicans! The are paid enormous amounts of money for a few hours of work each week, which requires no special talent or education. Sounds like a banker to me!

5:35 pm, Nov 1, 2010

5:53 pm, Nov 1, 2010

Chinanski

8:07 pm, Nov 2, 2010