Primary intelligence

This coming Tuesday promises to be quite significant for the political aspirations of Senators Clinton and Obama. The states of Indiana and North Carolina will be holding primary elections. If the pundits are correct, the results could force Hillary out of the race entirely, or lead to a complete deadlock between her and Senator Obama as the Democratic convention approaches.

I watch and read a considerable amount of news and consider myself well-informed on the candidates and issues. Of course, not everyone is like me. Political analysts have coined the term “low-information voter” to describe individuals who are not knowledgeable and vote anyway. The term “low-information voter,” in political discourse, sounds better than the word “idiot.”

There are many low-information voters in Indiana and North Carolina. There are many low-information voters in my own family. They do not consider themselves low-information voters. They watch Fox News and listen to Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter and consider themselves very well-informed. They forward me e-mails praising our troops and insisting that Senator Obama is a Muslim and the Founding Fathers were Catholics and that people who want to keep church and state separate are atheists and that George W. Bush is the greatest president ever because the Pope came to visit and George let him in.

Since no one will self-identify as a low-information voter, it’s helpful to have a reliable way of determining who they are. One simple method is to find out which candidate they support and then check the following chart:

Intellect Ideology Candidate
Stupid Liberal Clinton
Smart Liberal Obama
Stupid Conservative McCain
Smart* Conservative Clinton

*Note that the “smart conservative” category consists of approximately twelve people – Roger Ailes, Richard Mellon Scaife, Rupert Murdoch, Karl Rove, and a handful of GOP politicians. Their job is to trick the “stupid” conservatives (i.e., the ones who vote) into subverting their own interests and keeping the right-wing power structure intact.

Even I will admit that being liberal does not automatically make you smart. Take note of all the low-information voters who support Hillary Clinton. So many people are in love with the notion of electing a woman president that they have failed to notice Clinton’s steady vitiation.

She has adapted Karl Rove’s playbook masterfully, seizing any opportunity to hurl slime at her opponents, more so at her fellow Democrat then at Senator McCain.

She has also demonstrated considerable skill at pandering, hyping worthless non-issues such as the gas tax holiday.

She has shown that she will do or say anything – anything – to win.

Hillary has become a Republican. She has sold her soul to become President.

And she now enjoys the support of the “smart” conservatives who owe their reputations and relevance to the years they spent tearing down her husband, the former President.

They support her – for now – for one reason and one reason only. Barack Obama scares the hell out of them.

Of all the reasons I support Senator Obama, none is more important than that.

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