Akademik

(AW.fis-park dad)

n.

A married, suburban father who works in a white-collar job. Also: office park dad.

"The new blue-collar worker, the new Reagan Democrat, is the 'office park dad.' " said Simon Rosenberg, executive director of the New Democratic Network. "They're (baby) boomers and busters . . . these are people who make $60,000 a year, and they're struggling to make it in the new economy."

The "new Democrats" meeting on Monday openly questioned the effectiveness of Gore's presidential campaign, which relied heavily on the traditionally Democratic theme of "people versus the powerful." . . .

If you're an office park dad, "you're not anti-corporate, because you work for a corporation — or you know you'll be working for one again," said Tom Ochs, political director of the New Democratic Network. "So the 'people versus the powerful' is not the world they live in."

— Carla Marinucci. "Move over soccer moms — here come the 'office park dads'," The San Francisco Chronicle, August 13, 2002

Woo 'office-park dads.' Forget soccer moms. The hot new demographic, according to influential Democratic polltaker Mark Penn: Gen-X men, roughly 25 to 40, married to working spouses and employed in suburban white-collar (often high-tech) jobs. In Campaign 2000, said Penn, they swung late to Bush. They liked his faith in free markets and lower taxes — and saw Al Gore as a big-spending liberal. But now, buffeted by a recession, a dot-com collapse and Enron's aftermath, they are more receptive to the idea that government can help — from 401(k)s to education to medical care.

— Howard Fineman, "At Least It's a Plan," Newsweek, February 18, 2002

With every U.S. election cycle, the pollsters and spinmeisters anoint a new demographic as the Key to Winning the Election. It was the Angry White Males in 1994; the Soccer Moms in 1996; the Waitress Moms in 1998; and the WMWMs, the White, Married, Working Moms, in 2000. Moms, apparently, are eschewing silly demographic labels in the 2002 elections, so their husbands are picking up the slack in the form of office park dads, who represent roughly 15 percent of the U.S. electorate. I've also seen NASCAR dads, a demographic made up of blue-collar men who enjoy NASCAR stock-car racing.