Posted on 11/21/2010 7:31:12 AM PST by Sub-Driver
Top political scientist: U.S. voters are 'pretty damn stupid'
Political reporters often rely on University of Wisconsin political scientist Charles Franklin for expertise. In just the past few months, his insights have appeared in articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Associated Press, Politico, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, and many other publications. He's also a co-founder of the influential website Pollster.com, as well as co-director of the Big Ten Battleground Poll.
So Franklin answered with considerable authority when he was asked, at a recent forum on the November 2 election results, why Republicans emerged victorious in so many races. "I'm not endorsing the American voter," Franklin said. "They're pretty damn stupid."
Franklin was responding to a question from Bill Lueders, news editor of Isthmus, a weekly alternative newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. In an account published Thursday (H/T Ann Althouse), Lueders says he asked Franklin why "the public seemed to vote against its own interests and stated desires, for instance by electing candidates who'll drive up the deficit with fiscally reckless giveaways to the rich."
"Franklin, perhaps a bit too candidly, conceded the point," Lueders writes. "'I'm not endorsing the American voter,' he answered. 'They're pretty damn stupid.'"
Lueders writes that he responded, "Thank you, professor. That's the answer I was looking for." The rest of Lueders' account explains that smart voters support things like high-speed rail and higher taxes for the rich, while dumb voters support "an obvious phony like [Republican senator-elect] Ron Johnson over Russ Feingold."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
California is actually a pretty decent state, or it would be if everything within 30 miles of the west coast fell in the ocean.
Doing that seems so unAmerican to me. Back when American was the greatest country on the planet, EVERY AMERICAN pitched it to make it a great country. These clowns seem to be saying that "the voters" need to force "the rich" into subsidizing this country and footing the bill for all of the free government handouts. America will not survive with that kind of a system. The freeloaders outnumber the producers in this country by too great of a number. "The rich" do not have the money to support them all. The freeloaders are going to have to get out of the wagon and help push if this country is going to survive.
Just another progressive giving justification to their hoped for dictatorship of the proletariat to come. Cultural revolution time anyone??
Raising taxes on the rich is stealing their wealth and is not a giveaway.
Diana West: Obama’s paltry paper trail raises serious questions (Washington Examiner)
Read more at the Washington Examiner:
http://dev.www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/109278074.html#ixzz15wLWHLDy
He's right, we were stupid for electing Obama.
“...drive up the deficit with fiscally reckless giveaways to the rich.”
Silly me. I always thought the Deficit was a combination of K St lobbyists preying on gullible/complicit Congresscritters voting for more spending!!
I’m so uneducated. I need to get me PhD and park my peon butt at the nearest college to larn me how to vote correctly!!
But maybe, just maybe, not quite as stupid as he and his buddies in the ruling class would like for us to be.
Boise State is the best college team in the country this year. Period.
Okay, well how exactly are we going to get the high speed rail working. The only practical way I might see this work is having a rail system running through New Jersey, or perhaps up a coastline segment, but otherwise, it’s really not as practical to run from East to West. The U.S. is pretty sparse, relatively speaking in crossing that way. If you want to run a good public transportation service you need loads of customers to whom that travel route suits, as well as having a decent revenue (commuter fares plus taxes to pay for it)
As far as taxing on the rich, we have been doing it for years, and made the rich pay the higher portion of the total bill. It’s fairly obvious from our rising unemployment and poverty rate in the U.S. that it takes more than redistributing wealth to alleviate poverty and unemployment.
Boise State is the best college team in the country this year. Period.
by electing candidates who’ll drive up the deficit with fiscally reckless giveaways to the rich.”
The Bailouts and Stimulus Bill were a deliberate way of giving money to a set of rich people (Financiers and Labor Union Management). In essence, by electing both Obama and the accompanying Congress, the people did exactly that. This professor is either trying to be a good actor (hypocrite) and denying what happened by the recent Congress, or is stoned beyond rational thought.
Whether or not that’s true, they still aren’t eligible to win the Big 10 (what we were discussing). LOL.
Don’t know. Bears a resemblance to Roman Polanski.
Thanks, I thought that was the case but on the Ohio State-Iowa broadcast yesterday they said the highest BCS rating, I should have double-checked before just posting what I heard. So yeah, I assume that it will be Wisconsin going to the Rose Bowl. Not sure where the Buckeyes will be heading.
Didn’t mean to nitpick. The two (almost?) always align, so it’s a difference without a distinction.
Yeah, I’m wondering where my Buckeyes will land, too. Maybe we’ll get lucky and get B(oise) S(tate) in a bowl game!
Heh. No bias here. A perverted liberal pundit and a fraudulent college professor playing pitch and catch, and the whole smarmy game being reported without a giggle. My my.
The idea that the American voter may have a higher concept of his "interests" than the size of the lump in his wallet, is an alien concept to the liberal. Liberals think it is stupid to vote for principles, for example, because they don't have any.
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