How Cheers Characters Would Be Voting in 2020
Sam Malone (bartender/owner):
Sam for some reason feels intensely drawn to this highfalutin professorial candidate who has trouble connecting to blue collar types and gets horny for tweed and corduroy. But then he resents his attraction to her. It’s a push-and-pull sensation that is exciting at first and then goes away right before we get sick of it.
Diane Chambers (barmaid/grad student): Mayor Pete
Diane respects academic credentials too much to not be seduced by the Buttigieg machine. Plus he was a hell of an intern for her at McKinsey & Co. Yes, Diane on paper is much more likely Warren supporter but she has too much inner self-loathing for that. It doesn’t help that she got into an argument with the senator at a Harvard cocktail party in the mid-90s when Warren was still a Republican.
“Coach” Ernie Pantusso (bartender/supplies):
Coach has the utmost respect for young people and their ideas about what to do in this cockamamie world, plus he has experienced the horrors of war and will support anyone who wants us out of foreign entanglements after he accidentally shot at General Patton after seeing him put sauerkraut on his frankfurter.
Carla Tortelli (barmaid/security personnel): Joe Biden
She has a habit of falling for confident, incoherent snake oil salesmen that make everyone else uncomfortable to be around. She knows she’s making a mistake but she can’t help herself when he starts snacking on her lager-soaked fingers.
Norm Peterson (loyal customer/CPA): Yang Gang
$1000 a month could make quite a dent into a substantial bar tab and Norm will not stand idly by while children are being circumcised for no damn good reason!
Cliff Claven (bar gadfly/USPS employee [indefinitely suspended]): MAGA shithead
An incel blowhard who’s completely full of shit; became the first person to get kicked out of a Trump rally for being too into it.
Woody Boyd (bartender/sanitation czar): Bernie
Woody still makes minimum wage and is tired of the profits of the small business he contributes significantly to go to the very top while he sees no medical benefits for his labor. He is skeptical of market forces, is fiercely anti-war, wants to see ICE abolished, in favor of a Green New Deal donate here, every little bit helps this can actually happen, holy shit…and also uh, weed?
Dr. Frasier Crane (watering hole patron/professional-managerial class symbol): Marianne Williamson
After seeing the folly of modern psychiatry he becomes all about orbs.
Rebecca Howe (manager/social climber): Michael Bloomberg
Even though he cleaned her out in the divorce she still supports the guy.
Lilith Sternin (psychiatrist/
While Lilith approves of hurling office supplies at your inferiors when they have failed you, she does not think it conveys strength to have bangs so unkempt they vibrate as your barely-under-the-surface rage seeps out during questioning. Luckily she doesn’t believe in purity politics.
Nick Tortelli (cable repairman/layer of pipe): Deval Patrick
Nick knows nothing of politics, he just trusts his state’s former governor to take care of everyone after Patrick was working at Bain Capital when it gave Nick and his fellow employees 1200 big ones to not come into work anymore.
Robin Colcord (industrialist/Grey Poupon enthusiast): Tom Steyer
They plan on producing an app about Windsor knots together as soon as this thing is over
Harry the Hat (swindler/wearer of sock garters): Bill de Blasio
Also thinks he is equipped to address income inequality.
Gary (Old Towne Tavern proprietor/competitive asshole): John Delaney
They are p90x buddies and moisturize each other’s foreheads.
Eddie LeBec (hockey player/Canadian): Michael Bennet
I don’t know, running out of people here. It works.
Kelly Boyd (debutante/“charity” work): Meghan McCain
Class solidarity/identity politics.
Vera Peterson (10’3”, 640lbs., 136-24-136): Carrie Nation
Absentee ballot.
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Matt Payton performs stand up comedy in Los Angeles, where he also writes topical sketches for a weekly live show at iO West called Top Story! Weekly. He has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the Out of Bounds Comedy Festival. His work has appeared in Splitsider, Points In Case and, his fellow classmates’ yearbooks in the back half of the ’90s. He really enjoys writing bios and doesn’t at all fret about them.
