Sajak, Pat game show

<p>=</p><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="font-size: small;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Democracy Dies in Darkness</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Fix</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Lots of game show hosts are outspoken conservatives. But why?</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Philip Bump</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">September 16, 2015</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Before his foreign policy speech from the deck of the U.S.S. Iowa on Tuesday, Donald Trump was introduced by no less a Hollywood star than Wink Martindale. Yes, the Wink Martindale.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Hm? Oh. He was a game show host. The problem with being a game show host is that it's mostly bloopers that become immortal, so here's a clip of Martindale in his heyday, stumbling over the word "orangutan."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On Tuesday, Martindale told Trump's audience a few jokes and then introduced the "National Anthem Girl" to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner." Light work for a long-time host.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But why Trump? Martindale joins a surprisingly crowded phalanx of former and current game show hosts who get involved in politics -- many representing the conservative side of the spectrum.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The most vocal is Chuck Woolery, one-time host of "Love Connection," who now spends an awful lot of time on Twitter bad-mouthing President Obama and the left. (Woolery's Twitter background is the Constitution and an American flag.)</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Pat Sajak has used money earned as host of "Wheel of Fortune" to make large campaign contributions to Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Sajak also offers his critiques of climate change on Twitter.</span></b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">There's </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);"><b style="">Drew Carey,</b> the host of "The Price is Right," who contributed regularly to former Ohio governor and senator George Voinovich (R) and backed Ron Paul's 2008 </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">presidential bid. The man that preceded him in that job, Bob Barker, endorsed Florida Rep. David Jolly (R) in Jolly's special election fight in 2013. "Jeopardy"'s Alex Trebek has also given to Republicans, though he says that he's politically independent.<b> Ben "Bueller?" Stein hosted "Win Ben Stein's Money</b>" well after he was a well-known Hollywood conservative. (The emcee of that show? A younger Jimmy Kimmel.)</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">
</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">Last year, in the wake of Sajak's climate tweets, the Daily Beast's Rebecca Dana wrote perhaps the definitive piece on politically active conservative game show hosts. "To have the right sensibility to be a game-show host, you do have to have a belief in rugged individualism," Indiana University professor Olaf Hoerschelmann told her. "Either you make it or you’re not worth it."</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Maybe! But there's another possibility. Maybe the people listed above are well-to-do, older white men who mostly live in Southern California, which is about as concise a description of "someone likely to be a Republican" as is possible. Oh, and they're vocal.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">After all, there's some selection bias at play here. Regis Philbin, former "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" host, has made donations to a Republican -- and a Democrat. Tom Bergeron, who hosts 42,000 shows at any given moment, mostly gives to Democrats. The late Richard Dawson of "Family Feud" was a strong liberal, as was "Match Game's" Gene Rayburn. Perhaps there are disproportionately more Republicans in the ranks of former game show hosts. Perhaps there are more now. Perhaps we just notice them more and read into it.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Like with Wink Martindale. BuzzFeed's Rosie Gray reports that Martindale was there because he'd been invited to speak by a friend with ties to a group called "<b>Friends of Abe" </b>-- and that Martindale wasn't doing it because of Trump. "Don’t know him, just appreciate what he’s saying," Martindale said, "and in large regard, many points I agree with, some of course I don’t."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">That's the sort of even-handed geniality you might expect from a game show host.</div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><p>=

TUE MAY 20, 2014 AT 12:05 PM PDT <a id="titleHref" href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/20/1300742/-Pat-Sajak-Global-warming-alarmists-are-unpatriotic-racists-knowingly-misleading" style="font-size: 28px; letter-spacing: normal; text-transform: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1; color: rgb(37, 37, 37);"><span style=" font-size: large;">Pat Sajak: 'Global warming alarmists are unpatriotic racists knowingly misleading'</span></a></p>

<p>

<a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/20/1300742/-Pat-Sajak-Global-warming-alarmists-are-unpatriotic-racists-knowingly-misleading">http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/20/1300742/-Pat-Sajak-Global-warming-alarmists-are-unpatriotic-racists-knowingly-misleading</a></p>

<p>

<em style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.5em; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 14px;"><strong>Wheel of Fortune</strong> </em><span style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.5em; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 14px;">was the</span><em style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.5em; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 14px;"> </em><span style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.5em; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 14px;">top regular weekday syndicated program in Household ratings and </span><span style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.5em; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: 14px;">with total viewers for the week ending January 26, 2014.</span>

==</p>

<p>

It’s hardly news that “Wheel of Fortune” host Pat Sajak is an ardent conservative. He wrote, for instance,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.humanevents.com/author/pat-sajak/" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; list-style: none; color: rgb(255, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">several articles</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>with headlines like “Opposed to Obamacare? Then You Must Be a Racist” for the website Human Events between 2007 and 2013. But his latest rhetorical flourish is the most bizarre yet.

Sajak’s unhinged denialism — throwing wild allegations of racism against the overwhelming majority of scientists, for instance — exists only within the context of his own Twitter feed and writing online, where he’s perpetually making<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://twitter.com/patsajak/status/465817522738974720" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; list-style: none; color: rgb(255, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">purposefully incendiary remarks</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>wildly at odds with his sunny on-air personality.

But Sajak’s hardly alone as a prominent conservative who saves his vitriol for the off-air hours. Alex Trebek, of “Jeopardy!.” made allusions,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.salon.com/2014/05/20/pat_sajaks_vicious_climate_change_denial_and_the_world_of_conservative_game_show_hosts/www.newrepublic.com/article/117694/alex-trebek-last-king-american-middlebrow" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; list-style: none; color: rgb(255, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">in a recent New Republic profile</a>, to beliefs including, of the Tea Party, that “There are a lot of people out there who are not happy with the way things are going, and they’ve banded together,” though he described himself as apolitical even despite having hosted<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/republican-fundraisers-for-1000-who-is-alex-trebek/Content?oid=2134911" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; list-style: none; color: rgb(255, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">a 2010 Republican fundraiser</a>.

Drew Carey, of “The Price is Right,” has been an outspoken libertarian since his sitcom-actor days, telling Reason magazine: “As far as your personal goals are and what you actually want to do with your life, it should never have to do with the government. You should never depend on the government for your retirement, your financial security, for anything.” <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/price-is-right-game-show-host-bob-barker-republican-david-jolly-florida-special-election-bill-young-101055.html" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; list-style: none; color: rgb(255, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Bob Barker</a> is better-known for his animal advocacy than for his endorsement of conservative lobbyist David Jolly in last year’s House special election in Florida. Chuck Woolery, the original host of “Wheel of Fortune,” <a href="https://twitter.com/chuckwoolery/status/468478597619912704" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; list-style: none; color: rgb(255, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">is as active as his successor on Twitter</a> and has written for the <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/04/25/Washington-Times-Hires-Chuck-Woolery" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; list-style: none; color: rgb(255, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Washington Times</a>.</p>

<p style=" margin: 15px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; list-style: none; line-height: 20px; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">But is it that surprising these fellows trend towards conservatism? For one thing, they’re older, affluent white men — a group that, outside of Hollywood, doesn’t vote Democratic, at least not lately. And these men are as outside-of-Hollywood as you can get while still being paid to be on camera. Sajak has spent decades suffused in a self-consciously retrograde environment in which his female co-host’s role is to silently smile in a brand-new evening gown and his role is to cheer on contestants to win money on the basis of merit.

On game shows — so the thinking goes — there’s no such thing as luck; indeed, FCC rules prohibit game shows from stacking the deck in favor of one contestant or another. And so it is that game show hosts might extrapolate from their experience that luck is not particularly meaningful, that accumulation of wealth is based on one’s abilities at playing a game that’s the same for everyone. (<a href="http://www.salon.com/2014/03/10/alex_trebeks_jeopardy_gender_obsession/" style=" margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent; list-style: none; color: rgb(255, 0, 0); text-decoration: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Certainly Alex Trebek</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>has extrapolated from “Jeopardy” results fundamental ideas about gender essentialism.)

Or maybe it’s that exactly the sort of folks who appeal to the widest possible audience, or are perceived to by syndication executives and producers, are stolid and square, the sort of conservatives who a generation ago would have been Reagan supporters right in the center of the mainstream and only recently in an era of anti-science and anti-Obama mania have found themselves venting some rage online. In any event, we can only hope that “Billy on the Street” host Billy Eichner doesn’t have any secretly-held beliefs about climate change.</p>

</div>

</div>

===

 He’ll take Michael Steele for $2,000, Alex.</p><p>
</p><p>That “he” is Pat Sajak, host of the Jeopardy! companion Wheel of Fortune, and that donation to the chairman of the Republican National Committee is one of many the game-show host has made to conservative candidates in his lifetime. Sajak, who’s been relatively quiet about his politics until recently, blasted onto the national pundit scene in October with the debut of his column for National Review Online.</p><p>
</p><p>With this, he cemented his place in one of the conservative movement’s most elite and rarefied constituencies: right-wing game-show hosts.</p><p>
</p><p>A tiny island of Reagan Republicanism in the vast sea of liberal Hollywood, television’s greatest arbiters of luck and love—including Chuck Woolery, Drew Carey, Wink Martindale, Merv Griffin, and many others—have regularly loaned their support and opened their wallets to right-wing candidates and causes, collectively donating more than $100,000 since 1998.</p><p>
</p><p>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.</p><p>
</p><p>“I am a conservative thinker. My political choices usually follow that path,” says John O’Hurley, 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.”</p><p>
</p><p>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.</p><p>
</p><p>GALLERY: Game Show Hosts (PHOTOS)</p><p>
</p><p>
</p><p>“I'm now sacrificing my career coming out as a conservative,” said The Dating Game’s Woolery, a born-again Christian, during a 2009 appearance on Mike Huckabee’s Fox News talk show. “So I'll never be hired in Hollywood again once they find out I'm doing it on your show.” </p><p>
</p><p>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?</p><p>“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.”</p><p>
</p><p>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.</p><p>
</p><p>“Generally the ideology of acquiring money and achieving fortune through luck goes along pretty well with a certain basic capitalist attitude,” Hoerschelmann said. There also seems to be an element of free enterprise involved. Many hosts have other independent ventures— Chuck Woolery sells branded fishing equipment; Wink Martindale operates Wink’s World, which attempts to spread a patriotic message—and many own a piece of their shows.</p><p>
</p><p>But even the less vocal ones have found ways to lend their support. According to records from the Federal Election Commission, game-show kingpin Griffin, creator of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, gave more than $50,000 to Republicans between 1998 and 2007, the year he died. Martindale, host of Tic Tac Dough and many other shows, gave $2,000 to George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign. Jeff Foxworthy, host of Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?, gave $1,000 to Bush in 2004 and another $3,000 to the RNC. Drew Carey, host of The Price Is Right, has given $5,000 to George Voinovich and $2,300 to Ron Paul. And former Nixon aide Ben Stein, who hosted Win Ben Stein’s Money on Comedy Central in the early Aughts, has given well over $30,000 since 1998.</p><p>
</p><p>READ MORE Tea Party Losing Battles, Winning War</p><p>
</p><p>In addition to his contributions to the Hagel campaign, Trebek, 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. “</p><p>
</p><p>Combat Veterans for Congress, which has been endorsed by Sarah Palin, did not return calls and an email for comment. Through his spokesman, Trebek also declined to comment. “He doesn't think he has anything to add to this discussion,” the spokesman said.</p><p>
</p><p>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.</p><p>
</p><p>There are a few Democrats in the bunch, including Let’s Make a Deal’s Monty Hall, who donated $250 to Joe Lieberman’s presidential campaign, and Tom Bergeron of Dancing With the Stars, who has given more than $8,000 to left-wing causes, including more than $3,000 to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. But most hosts wield long-stemmed microphones in their left hand and vote with their right.</p><p>
</p><p>“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.</p><p>
</p><p>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.</p><p>
</p><p>“Those are my private views,” he said. “Just because I am a celebrity, doesn't mean the that my opinions deserve to be celebrated. I am just another bozo on the bus.”</p><p>
</p><p>Related from The Daily Beast</p><p>=

 </p>