Too Informed For Words


For what seems roughly the last year and a half, Rush Limbaugh has had an obsession with what he terms "low-information voters."    In late March, he remarked

I have never said that low-information voters are stupid.  I just said they don't know what they think they know.  They are prisoners to the media, which has dumbed them down.  Low-information voters can be doctors.  Low-information voters can be scientists.  They can be among all walks of life.  It has nothing to do with IQ.  It has to do with what they don't know because of their media sources.  Low-information voters are clearly people that don't have all the information available to make a voting choice.  That's all they are.  And they're all over the place.  And most of them do vote Democrat. 

Most of them did vote for Obama. It's not a comment on their intelligence. It's not that they're stupid or don't understand the issues. They just haven't had it all explained to them. 

On Tuesday, "low-information voters" morphed into "stupid idiots" as Limbaugh commented

Look, you and I, the people that did not vote for Obama, we're pessimistic because we are asking ourselves why is the rest of the country such a bunch of idiots.  Can I be honest?That's what we're depressed about. How in the hell did this happen?  How is this country populated with so many stupid idiots? 

I wouldn't call a majority of the nation's voters- or even Limbaugh listeners- "a bunch of idiots" or "stupid idiots."   (Who are those smart idiots- and did they also vote for Obama?)  Still, the survey taken by Public Policy Polling  in the first week of December, 2012 gives a glimpse of the Repub popular base.   The outfit noted

49% of GOP voters nationally say they think that ACORN stole the election for President Obama. We found that 52% of Republicans thought that ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama, so this is a modest decline, but perhaps smaller than might have been expected given that ACORN doesn't exist anymore.

Now, that's one powerful organization, emerging from the grave briefly to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat for Barack Obama.



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