Tuesday, December 07, 2004

Do we overestimate the knowledge of the average voter?

Don't answer that. The answer is yes. And notice I said knowledge, not intelligence. Let me set up why I've come to this conclusion.

This morning I was listening to the local Detroit news on TV when I heard them mention that Mitch Albom would be sigining his new book at a Borders in Birmingham at 7 pm this evening. My ears perked up at that, because I actually knew where that Borders was located. I had stopped there during my last trip to Detroit. I decided that if my schedule permitted, I would go over there and get a copy for my parents. They had loved Tuesday's with Morie, and I figured they'd get a kick out of having a personalized, signed copy of 5 People You Meet in Heaven. My schedule ended up allowing me to head over there, so I bought my copy and stood in line for an hour and a half to get my copy signed.

When you stand in line for an hour and a half, you get to know the people around you better than you know some of your friends, and this line was no different. Within the first 15 minutes, I knew the 2 women in front of me worshiped Bill Clinton. I also knew the 4 behind me all listened to Rush Limbaugh, purely, they claimed, because he was a heck of an entertainer. Based on this, I felt the four behind me were probably of a kindred political spirit to me. I was wrong.

After we had been in line for an hour, the oldest of the group of four, a gentleman who had been just a little too young to serve in the Second World War, kicked off the political talk. All four began to bash the living hell out of Bush. This surprised me, as they had talked glowingly of Limbaugh. I missed good bits of this conversation because it hadn't fully caught my attention, and I'm not a chronic eaves dropper. By the time I started listening, they were talking about 2008. They talked about Dole running again (they meant Gore). They talked about how that Guiliano guy didn't stand a chance. But apparently McLain does (the Die Hard guy is running?). They were mixed about the good looking one (they nailed down Edwards name after several references as "the good looking one"). They did get Kerry's name right and Hillary's name right, but they did say that Bill Clinton could be Hillary's VP, which is not correct. Finally, the elder statesman of the group, the old guy who kicked off the conversation, said, "They just don't make 'em like ol' Give 'em Hell Harry anymore. Boy I liked him." I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt on that comment only because I cannot prove him wrong. I did want to interject, "Congrats. You were part of a mere 38% who liked Harry when he left office." I'd bet dollars to donuts that guy did not like Truman when he left office, because he seemed to be a very "do the in thing" type of guy.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we talk about how we need such incredibly high voter turnouts. Do we really, though? I'd say that no more than 25% of the voting public is well informed on the issues. The remaining are voting in a giant popularity contest. Is that a good idea? Are we not forfeiting our control over the very federal officials we piss and moan about constantly when they know they can get elected by avoiding those of us who are informed and pandering to the less informed amongst us? If you want to do your GOTV events in 2008, fine, so be it. But maybe we should work in a KWTHYTA campaign as well. (That would be a Know What the Hell You're Talking About campaign).

1 comment:

Mediaskeptic said...

I agree totally. I had a Pol Sci professor in college who used to say that no more than 30% of the public should vote because 70% don't even bother to read a book a year or a newspaper on any day but Sunday, and don't want to know anything about world events. Encouraging them to vote would be an act of national suicide. Which is why the "Get Out the Vote" campaigns are so big with the Democrats. They absolutely depend upon the ill-informed who spout Oprah Winfreyisms and still think Walter Cronkite was fatherly (and not in a Joseph Stalin way.)