How to (Not) Win Friends and Influence People

is that they opposed the war (and the Vietnam war as well) more so than their educated betters. It wasn't the low educated voters who wrote Bush's policies and voted for them.

Some of these high educated, high information voters I've talked still can't name me one thing Obama has accomplished. Some even think he was elected to the Senate before AUMF in 2002. I've had dinner with Nobel Laureates and people who were really poor with no education (some my friends) as well as everything in between. There are many with fancy degrees who aren't as smart as some of them low education people I grew up.

It's not anti-intellectualism. Hell, people on the bottom want their kids to get the fancy degrees. It is really interesting how Obama brings out the absolute worst in people. If low education, low information voters were anti-intellectual my parents would never have let me go to an elite university since only one of them even graduated high school.

Because people who think they're smart are actually quite stupid. And people who pat themselves on the back for electing the black guy, are actually quite prejudiced.

Hey, here's an idea, maybe those hillbillies don't vote for Obama because they know when a movement doesn't give two shits about them and thinks of them as only slightly more evolved than tree moss. Maybe they believe any movement who sees them that way isn't likely to do shit for them.

I don't have time to take down the whole thing, but he's just some of what's wrong with this elitist trash:

One reason is that Clinton campaigns based upon flawed economic policies to pander to the lower income voters. She promotes policies such as the gas tax holiday and and her proposals for the mortgage crisis which require education and knowledge of the issues to see the serious errors.

Perhaps people would rather have someone proposing solutions, which may or may not work, instead of sitting around wanking about why those solutions will fail. I have yet to hear from Obama on how he plans to provide short-term relief on the rising price of gas. Or any details on what he would do on the mortgage crisis. And even here, isn't it interesting that the writer doesn't mention what policies Obama has proposed or why they're better than Clinton's.

And I bet if you asked those low information voters what Clinton was planning to do, they could tell you some of it. Compare to Stoller and Bowers admitting they still don't fucking know.

Clinton has also depended on low educated, low-information voters when she has spent much of her campaign using mailers and robo-calls to distort Obama’s positions and record.

You mean like the misleading mailer using a flashback of Harry & Louise on healthcare and misstated what his opponent said about NAFTA (http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/...), the robocalls trying to scare people about Clinton's healthcare mandates (http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1...), or the television ad that misrepresented the role of lobbyists and oil money (http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/...).

While populist on economic issue, and therefore mislabeled a liberal, she is a conservative on social issues, civil liberties issues, and foreign policy.

You mean like having to be talked out of voting for John Roberts? Lecturing Democrats on faith? Voting present on numerous abortion bills? Saying that "all options are on the table" with regard to Iran? Introducing a bill in the Senate that would designate the Iranian Guard a terrorist organization?

Not only do these people not have any fucking idea about anyone outside of their own little Yuppie enclaves, they know nothing about the candidate they support. And yet my relatives in Tennessee are "low information" voters.

Sorry no links, but I've got RL stuff to do. Everything here has been discussed before.

the difference is that Clinton is providing ideas/"plans" that address the concerns of the American people. She's not married to the details of the plans, just to purpose of the proposals/plans.

Obama, on the other hand, has a punch of "plans" and "proposals" that were written by other people that he's memorized the powerpoint presentation on -- none of which he has any commitment to.

People are worried because of gas prices. Hillary offers a short term fix that is consistent with her overall "energy" strategy. Obama offers NOTHING to address the people who are concerned about skyrocketing gas prices, other than a politically motivated all out attack on Clinton's plan to provide a little relief to the little guy.

Bill Clinton remained popular throughout his presidency because he knew that by supporting a few stupid but relatively harmless ideas (school uniforms, anyone?) he coul maintain support for the "tough decisions" that had to be made.

And while Clinton was giving us eight years of peace and prosperity by providing a couple of million dollars for school uniforms, the left was enjoying the luxury of not worrying about their livelihoods, and being able to endlessly obsess over the issue os school uniforms and the right of students to exercise their First Amendment privileges by wearing jeans that showed their ass cracks, and super short skirts, and safety pins in their cheeks.

a Cosby article at the Atlantic-- http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200805/cosby

"... The strain of black conservatism that Cosby evokes has also surfaced in the presidential campaign of Barack Obama. ...
In fact, this sort of rhetoric amounts to something of a racial double play, allowing Obama and Cosby to cater both to culturally conservative blacks and to whites who are convinced that black America is a bastion of decadence. (Curiously, Cosby is noncommittal verging on prickly when it comes to Obama. When Larry King asked him whether he supported Obama, he bristled: “Do you ask white people this question? … I want to know why this fellow especially is brought up in such a special way. How many Americans in the media really take him seriously, or do they look at him like some prize brown baby?” ...
a sense that black culture in its present form is bastardized and pathological. ..."

Obama's repeated appeals to white cultural conservatives and his successes and failures at it need to be examined more closely, i think--the presumptions, positioning, etc--He spent so much time specifically reaching out to these "Hillbillies" and "low-information" whites.

Racists are stupid. Plus, they cling to their guns. What's wrong with you?

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

I try, I really do, to accept that other people have points of view that are equally valid, that they just see things differently than I do, that I should respect those differences, etc. Most of the time I can carry that off, but lately....

Take the modern Republican Party, for instance. Richard "Yes you are a Crook" Nixon. Ronald "Brain-dead" Reagan. George "Essence of Evil" Bush. Again and again, over and over, it can't be a mistake; the party puts the worst possible people up for office and watches while they destroy the country and the world. Even if the destruction is profitable in the short term, it cannot be sustained.

And the people who vote for Republicans, who support the evil and the destruction, are just as complicit. They are equally to blame. They cannot possibly believe that what the Republican Party has been doing is good or right or even plausibly something that can keep going forward without ruining the whole planet and the lives of everyone on it.

Going forward, try as I might, there is only one inescapable conclusion; after all that has been done, after all of the evidence before us, anyone who is a member of the Republican Party, and everyone who votes for a Republican, is stupid.

The Obama low information voters adopted the classic attitude of America's plutocracy. Keep the African Americans, the poor whites and latinos apart. Cause if they ever get together, they will topple to the system. Obama was their perfect tool, he was hired to break down any potential populist unity. He used all the techniques that were used in the days of old.

The "creative class" has not common interests with the working class, the working poor or the poor of any class. The creative class are the meritocrats, they have amassed privileges and they are not interested in sharing. Other than being against the war, they have no empathy or concern for the other classes of both races.

Good job Obama. I would like Edwards to justify any kind of Obama love now.

I don't mean to get all elitist on an elitist, but, man, that's a poorly written piece. It reminds me of Homer Simpson's "I am so smart! I am so smart! S-M-R-T!"

I'll have to start propagating that one, FlipYrWhig. Stowers, Boller et al so richly deserve it.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

of eating as I read this post because when I got to the end, I burst out laughing so I now have to clean up my laptop. Worth it though.

I am going to write a post entitled in the land of the out of touch.

(Not to be confused with hacker/gamer-speak: Leet)

SMRT remix.

...that Hillary supporters en masse are getting to experience what we in Appalachia and the South have to put up with every freaking day. I am a generational Appalachian and I'm highly educated (university lecturer). Some in my family were coal miners and others have been farmers and moonshiners. My mother never went to college and can tell you all about out-houses even though I grew up in a nice Appalachian subdivision complete with tennis courts and a swimming pool. I'm multi-ethnic (native american, melungeon, and caucasian) and very liberal but to the democratic party I'm at best a problematic voter and at worst a racist piece of uneducated white trash.

Hillary's supporters are dumb asses because all Hillary does is talk about issues and solutions.

Obama's supporters are the cream of the intellectual crop because Obama has the best slogans and platitudes, plus he's way kewl when he busts out the jive ass rap moves.

that intelligence and education go hand and hand, if you are one, then by definition you are the other. Take George Bush -- that is one well educated, Yale undergrad, Harvard MBA genius! He must be supporting Obama.

made my day. Since I've been called dumb (and racist for the first time) all day for supporting Hillary. But don't you need to polish your rifle too?

happily immune to all religious indoctrination

As a bona fide nerd, I kind of see this as the flip side of some well-justified nerd resentment. You see it reflected on a lot of liberal blogs. The feeling that the country is going down the tubes because people are too stupid to see what's good for them. That they were mocked for too long, and now One Of Them is going to see office without having to hide it anymore.

And maybe they are. But that's not how you get people to vote for you. And certainly no way to get them to destupidify.

Called racist for the first time for supporting Hillary? Incroyable....

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

I am just shocked! SHOCKED, I say!

happily immune to all religious indoctrination