The existence and meaning of the “Bernie Bro” will continue to be contested by a bored and desperate political media, but the Tinder Berners, women who attempted to “take over” Tinder with messages of support for Bernie Sanders are for real—real enough that they’re now being banned from the dating app. But what if a single-n-flirty gal decided to chat up horny men about Ohio governor John Kasich?

Historically for me it’s been hard enough to get earnest responses even when I’m not conducting an experiment for the blog that employs me, so I decided to pose as a woman with a fake name, Facebook profile, and Tinder account. I borrowed some photos from a mortified-but-cooperative coworker, who let me pretend I was her circa 2010 during sorority rush.

Still, I’d be attempting to canvass for a Republican politician from Ohio in Gay Liberal Islamic Jewish New York City, where support for Governor Kasich is relatively low. But if there’s any universal truth, it’s that Tinder is a cave habitat for garbage males—the sort of garbage males who might just be dumb enough to pledge allegiance to Kasich for the possibility of ass. So, on Friday, I got to work.

The volume of responses was overwhelming—at any given time of day there is a staggering volume of lonely men typing “hi” into Tinder, a sort of “million monkeys on a million typewriters” scenario, if the goal of the monkeys was to produce creepy trash instead of Hamlet. Unfortunately, dropping the K bomb made many of my first conversations non-starters:

It seemed rude to not even decline my invitation to discuss the Kasich Action Plan, described as “A STRATEGY FOR DISMANTLING WASHINGTON & RECLAIMING OUR POWER, MONEY AND INFLUENCE” according to a page on Kasich’s website that I did not read.

Bummer.

Gross!

Rude!

But some men were willing to at least hear me out—chivalry ain’t dead, it just has advanced leukemia:

This was very sweet:

Some men were put off by my cocktail of sex appeal and Ohio centrism:

Come on!

It was clear some suitors were completely ignorant of my man John:

This one quickly went south:

NO THANK YOU. I was a Kasich Kutie, not a Kasich Kwhore.

There were many men whose political allegiance was essentially for sale:

This fellow took a little more convincing:

There were also, as expected, some hardcore partisans who immediately went on the counteroffensive once I brought up the flourishing Kasich campaign:

This was devastating:

I guess it wasn’t going to work anyway.

Then there was this fuckin’ guy:

And THIS fuckin’ guy, a living, boner-ing embodiment of Vox.com:

OK boring byeeeeeee.

Finally, against all odds, I was able to convince one guy, or at least goad him into pretending to take the Kasich campaign seriously in a bid to see a fake person on Tinder naked:

Wow. My takeaway: democracy works.

My other takeaway: men are garbage, Tinder is bad, Sanders supporters are tediously bad, and John Kasich will not be the next president of the United States.

Photo of Kasich: Getty

Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com.
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