Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 26, 1993 TAG: 9302260133
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ATLANTA LENGTH: Medium
SLICK NEW YORK MAGAZINE BANKING ON BUBBA BUCKS
If you measure stock performance in NASCAR points rather than Dow Jones, read on.If you thought "thirtysomething" was how many beers $15 ought to buy at the 7-Eleven, your time has finally arrived - along with that fella from razorback country. At least, so say the editors of a publication that just hit the news racks.
It's called "Bubba Magazine."
The slick, TV Guide-size journal offers pieces defining the Bubba culture that it says President Clinton will foster. Articles range from must-sees along the Little Rock-to-Washington corridor - don't miss Dinosaur Land - to drink recipes, such as one called Hop, Skip and Go Naked.
The 300,000-copy first issue is already sold out in many bookstores around the country, Editor Dean King said. Looks like this dog will hunt, to use Clinton's own phrase.
"Bill Clinton is Bubba's new dawn," enthused King.
But not everybody's so sure, notably in the South.
"I give it four issues before it goes belly-up," said John Shelton Reed, a University of North Carolina sociologist who has written about such topics as country songs and bourbon whiskey.
"Bubba's one of those terms that may be all right to use within the group," Reed said. "But when you've got a magazine coming out of New York, people get their backs up."
Dean acknowledged the magazine has rankled some in Dixie. The editor hastened to note that he's a Virginian and that other staffers come from Texas and South Carolina. "It's by Bubbas and for Bubbas."
Dean argued that Bubba, while starting as a Southern term, now applies around the nation. "You can find Bubba in New Hampshire, I guarantee you."
"Bubbas are friendly, outgoing sorts," the magazine says, explaining how the term fits Clinton's style.
"Nobody could look that comfortable in a John Deere cap without knowing who he is and who his people are. . . . Our man is a Bubba through and through. They couldn't bleach it out of him in Oxford, England or at Yale Law School, so they don't have a prayer now."
The magazine takes on such questions as "How to explain Hillary," who is, it says, no Bubbette. It urges tolerance, noting that she lets Clinton smoke cigars, play golf and go to McDonald's. "That ain't bad."
It also includes an affectionate profile of down-home first mother Virginia Kelley, the best "evidence that the 42nd president hails from the F-150-driving side of town." (City slickers note: That's a Ford pickup.)
And there's this political post-mortem: George Bush made a fatal mistake when he stopped eating pork rinds in public; Clinton, on the other hand, had it right when he hunted votes at a stock-car track.
"Pork rinds and stock cars are the twin symbols of the force that has dominated recent American elections and soon will determine the future of the world," the magazine avers. "Bubba rules America. What Bubba says, goes."
Reed laughed. "I was down at Darlington," the professor said, referring to the South Carolina racetrack. "When Clinton stood up, he was booed.
"If it were up to Bubba, he wouldn't be president today."