Apparently Barack Obama is our new president because the people who voted for him are stupid. That’s according to a One News Now piece that includes transcript from a video of Obama supporters who don’t recognize congressional leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
Although nearly all of the Obama voters interviewed did not know who the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate were, they did know that the Republican Party spent $150,000 on Sarah Palin’s wardrobe and also knew that she was the one candidate with a pregnant teenage daughter.
The video features a dozen voters who “were chosen for their apparent intelligence/verbal abilities and willingness to express their opinions to a large audience.”
Therein lies the problem. I’m sure I could find 12 McCain/Palin supporters who couldn’t name the Democratic leadership in the Congress but knew how much Palin spent on clothing and had a pregnant daughter. That doesn’t mean they’re stupid—it means they’ve been watching the mainstream media because that’s all that was reported. You can’t really blame the voters for being misinformed if all the media feeds us is the pabulum of clothing and the lurid details of a teenager’s mistake.
In fact, if one wants to get into a “your supporters are dumber than my supporters” war all we need to do is refer to a Pew Forum poll done last year that shows the most politically informed and astute people get their news from Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.” Among the least informed viewers? Those who watch Fox News, local TV news, or the morning “news” shows.
While those results may seem odd, it makes sense when you think about it. To enjoy “The Daily Show,” you have to be up-to-date on the latest political and world news that they parody – otherwise you’ll miss the jokes. To be that informed you have to get your news from a variety of sources – the newspaper, the Internet, blogs, cable news – and you have to be able to evaluate the “truthiness” of anything that you read or hear. Only then, will Jon Stewart be able to make you laugh.
But, let’s not be so hard on those who can’t name Pelosi or Reid, no matter who they voted for. Most of the people in this country are working hard to simply make ends meet. They don’t have the luxury of time one needs to keep up with the latest doings of Congress or other news. These are people who may be working two jobs or more to put food on the table and take care of their kids. Yes, they may have voted for a candidate based on their gut, the candidate’s ads, or, yes, even based on the color of the candidate’s skin. Whether they can name certain leaders isn’t what’s most important. What’s most important is this: They voted—and that makes them the smartest people in the world.
