The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: Voting Without the Facts
Here's an article that fits so nicely with the overall theme of this blog that I had to include it this morning. When thinking about exactly how Bush won the presidency (for the first time), we are reminded of the power of the religious right and told, "it's the values, stupid." But perhaps it's the stupidity.
There's a lot more the electorate didn't hear about and didn't know than did. And what we did hear bore very little resemblance to reality.
An excerpt:
I think a case could be made that ignorance played at least as big a role in the election's outcome as values. A recent survey by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland found that nearly 70 percent of President Bush's supporters believe the U.S. has come up with "clear evidence" that Saddam Hussein was working closely with Al Qaeda. A third of the president's supporters believe weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. And more than a third believe that a substantial majority of world opinion supported the U.S.-led invasion.
This is scary. How do you make a rational political pitch to people who have put that part of their brain on hold? No wonder Bush won.
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