McCAIN HAS BEEN RUNNING ON CHANGE FOR 30 YRS.. HE HAS GONE ACROSS PARTY LINES TO GET THINGS DONE (IE;CHANGE!) HE HAS WAITED A LONG TIME TO HAVE THIS CHANCE TO MAKE REAL CHANGE IN WASHINGTON! IF ELECTED HE WILL HAVE A CABINET OF DEMOCRATS AND INDEPENDANTS AND REPUBLICANS THAT HE HAS WORKED WITH OVER THE LAST 30 YRS! HE KNOWS THOSE IN WASHINGTON THAT WANT CHANGE BUT WERE TO AFRAID TO SPEAK UP FOR FEAR OF THIER PARTIES REPRISAL.. SO THOSE FOLKS WILL BE APPOINTED TO HIS CABINET ! NOW A QUESTION FOR YOU WHO WILL OBAMA PUT IN HIS CABINET ? WHO HAS HE WORKED WITH IN HIS SHORT TIME AS A U.S. SENATOR? AND WHO DOES HE KNOW IN WASHINGTON THAT WANTS REAL CHANGE ( NOT THE LIBERAL VERSION OF IT ) WHO ? IF YOU WANT A NSWER TO THIS YOU HAVE TWO OPTIONS (1) GO TO MOVE ON .ORG AND SEE WHO IS PAYING HS WAY INTO THE WHITE HOUSE ! OR (2) LOOK AT THE COMPANY HE HAS KEPT FOR THE LAST 20YRS ! THAT???S WHO HE WILL APPOINT TO HIS CABINET MAYBE NOT THOSE FOLKS .. BUT ONES EXACTLY LIKE THEM !
In Search of Rational Voters
Email To A Friend
Please fill in the following information and we'll email this link.
I don't know how many millions of people have thought about this privately. But one writer has taken the leap of producing a book that challenges all the orthodoxies of rational voting. Indeed, he has taken every possible opportunity to poke holes in them.
"Just How Stupid Are We?," by Rick Shenkman, has been on the shelves for nearly six months now. It has sold a lot of copies. I didn't bother to look at it for a long time because the title made me think it was either a piece of frivolous fluff or an ideological screed of the sort that pop up like weeds in presidential election years.
But it's a serious book, by a history professor who treats politics as serious business and is more interested in repairing the flaws of the political system than in whining about voters or politicians. Before any real repairs can be made, he believes, the flaws in the conventional theory of rational voting behavior have to be exposed. In particular, he believes it is fantasy to think one can establish any kind of rationality on a foundation of factual ignorance. Below some threshold of basic knowledge, he says, intelligent voting is simply not possible, no matter how finely tuned one's gut instincts may be. Below that threshold, the voter is, in many cases, just a fool.
Shenkman talks a great deal about the Iraq War, and I will try briefly to summarize what he says--not because I relish rehashing the Iraq debate, but because I think he makes some points that are hard to dismiss.
The crucial ones have to do with perceptions of Saddam Hussein. Polls consistently have shown that for most of the past seven years, a majority of Americans believed Saddam was involved in the 9/11 attacks. A larger majority believed him to be in league with Al Qaeda somehow. And even more were ready to brand him as an international terrorist.
Shenkman believes, and I think he is right, that the war never would have achieved popular support in this country had most voters known that all of these assertions were false. The truth—that Saddam was a brutal thug, but not an international terrorist—was available to anyone who wished to learn it. The bipartisan 9/11 commission declared definitively in early 2004 that Saddam had nothing to do with Al Qaeda. The presidential election was held that fall with roughly half the country utterly mistaken on an issue of vital importance.
Discuss