An enlightened redneck decorates his home with all kinds of oddball knick-knacks, political and otherwise (to the extent that his pretentious Southern wife will let him).

A case in point is this Bill Clinton “draft dodger” that I bought years ago as a Christmas gift for Grandpa Tumblebug. Hang it on your doorknob until winter, and then lay it in the gap between the floor and the bottom of the exterior door to dodge the draft of cold air.

Grandpa and my uncle Howard kept it on the door of their electronics shop for years (the yellow stains from all of the chain-smoking in the shop bear witness to that fact). Soon after Grandpa died in 2006, my mother gave Clinton back to me. He hangs on the back of our front door to this day, except when the kids hide him to tease me.

I also display the macaroni and cheese I got at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. It’s in the same office where I display the picture I took of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher when I went to the White House in 1988 and the controversial “Obama Waffles” I bought at the 2008 Values Voter Summit. My other goodies include a deck of cards that features all of the presidential candidates on the ballot in New Hampshire in 2000 from my visit there.

That mix of political souvenirs, along with my memorabilia from West Virginia University and Guatemala, no doubt would leave visitors baffled about me. Republican or Democrat? Redneck or enlightened one?

But newcomers rarely see my treasures. My wife begs me to hide them when we have friends to the house for the first time so as not to shock them with my politically incorrect interior decorating techniques. I usually oblige.