Have I mentioned lately that I hate the phrase ‘low-information voters’?

And not in the sense of “I wish that we would switch out the term for some other insult;” in the sense of “I remember how badly thinking of voters as ‘sheeple’ worked out for the Democratic base in 2002 and 2004.” I understand the impulse, and maybe it wasn’t meant as an insult then, but it’s certainly become one now.

Am I lecturing? Probably. Then again, I’m a notorious RiNO, squish, and neocon – which are all terms farther along on the road that ‘low information voter’ is traveling, nu?

Moe Lane

PS: Verbal shorthands are some of the most unsafe weapons in the political arsenal: devastating when they work right, but devastating when they work wrong, too. You don’t have to be a pro to work these gigs, but you do have to take the whole thing seriously.

29 thoughts on “Have I mentioned lately that I hate the phrase ‘low-information voters’?”

  1. Here’s the thing:
    They’re “low-information voters” because the press bloody well won’t GIVE THEM ANY BLEEDING INFORMATION SO AS TO BE HIGH INFORMATION VOTERS.
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    I just may stroke out here.
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    aopsudfy79sdfy hubdsfhasdfa960rat sdfgafsd0t79gfs dasdf

    1. So. How did you become an informed voter, again?
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      The thing is, low information voters, like bastards, penalize the results, not the cause… Why don’t we blame Romney for not communicating, eh?
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      Mew
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      (Cat thinks Silky Edwards didn’t get near enough hell for his Rielle-child)

      1. People being forced to work two 29-hour-per-week jobs don’t have the luxury of time that I do. I don’t blame them for not paying attention as closely as I.

        1. Ignorance of the candidates is no excuse, zamoose, and elections have consequences.
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          Note, I am *not* blaming the voters for being uninformed .. I am asking you for ideas on on how to change it.
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          More in my reply to Jeffstag below.
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          Mew

      2. I said this to you many times acat, back in the day. Not that I have any solutions.

        But, it comes to this:

        1) the statists control education, NEA, Universities.

        2) the statists control the media (not the joos, the liberal American statists).

        3) The products of our warped educational system raise kids, put them in front of the tv and watch statists tell them how to be better statists.

        In the end, our nation as a whole is feeding of the accomplishments of past generations. We are much like Rome when the end was nigh. It took a while to destroy everything, but when you produce nothing, the destruction is guaranteed.

        1. No real argument, Doc, about what the statist/libs have control of, but I do question whether it’ll matter in 20-30 years.
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          Brittle systems – and the kind of bureaucratic systems favored by statists are always top-heavy and almost always brittle underneath – do not react well to sudden changes.
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          Witness how well the newspaper business adapted to the internet… how many dailies have died, and how many more are on life support?
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          You just know if Bezos makes a go of his recent purchase, others will jump in the mix, and the inflexible bureaucracy will be in their crosshairs.
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          Look just a little ahead, and you’ll see that colleges are going to be well and truly screwed.
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          One of my college-student acquaintances mentioned making sure he’d get an ‘A’ in a for-credit class by “taking extra free classes” .. i.e. watching freely available internet videos of other professors delivering the same information.
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          College, as an industry, has no *clue* what’s about to crush it.. and K-12 is right behind only even less clueful.
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          This is going to be messy.
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          Mew

      1. Out of curiosity, how often do you get called a nazi – proportionally to being called a rino or a squish?
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        I seem to collect more godwin-violators for some reason…
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        Mew

      2. Being a hardcore nativist is more a RINO than being a squish on immigration imo.
        Haven’t read the Krauthammer Plan ( could you send me a link) I’m opposed to the Gang of 8 bill but I’d like to see a Guest Worker program.

        1. I am unsure whether this is the one Moe means, but it is a proposal I could live with.
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          http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-immigration–getting-it-right/2013/01/31/ee05f716-6bdb-11e2-ada0-5ca5fa7ebe79_story.html
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          In short, close the damn border, then let’s talk…
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          I don’t even have a problem with that conversation dragging on for two decades because .. once we close the border, we can – and culturally, we will .. American Way – begin assimilation of their children.
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          Likewise, I don’t have a problem with – the day the fence is done *enough* – handing out green cards to everyone who can prove they’ve been here six months or longer.
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          Once we get down to a trickle of “illegals”, short-term or long-term, there will be a whole host of Americans whose parents got here the same way my great-{nth}-grandparents did .. any way they could.
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          And that, for me, is the point .. once the border is closed, we can .. digest. We haven’t, as a country, had a chance to do that in a while… and as a country, we’re having the same negative effects as a middle-aged person trying to eat enchiladas like a college kid…
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          I will point out that, historically, we have put restrictions on immigrants from Europe and Asia .. Ellis Island, for example. South-of-the-border has always been treated differently, and I have a hard time viewing policies that bring south-of-the-border immigration into line with the other two as a bad thing, eh?
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          Mew

    1. he is a rino squish on immigration, and he is a neocon. But he is a rino squish neocon who can do a damn good interview and has spent his time and money to offer us a damn good website to hang at.

  2. I don’t think it’s so much as insult, as a reminder that most people don’t care, and are easily swayed by falsehoods.
    Also, they will punish you if you try to get them to care.
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    It’s an important concept to keep in mind. We need to reach out to this group, but we also need to be very careful as to how we go about it.

    1. Reaching out to this group is hard by definition. Some of them are friends of mine and the depths of their political ignorance is almost impossible to fathom. They aren’t swayed by anything on the news becasue they don’t watch the news. I talked to a few of them during the last election cycle and they were only vaugly aware the republican candidate was named Romney and that he was some rich guy and NOTHING beyond that. It’s like if I asked you to name the top NASCAR drivers this season (or something else if you happen to follow NASCAR, which is a fine sport that I just don’t happen to have the time to follow). Take that same level of ignorance and transfer it to politics and you have Low Information Voters. They’re not stupid, per se, their attention is just elsewhere. You can’t reach out to them because they simply aren’t paying attention. You can only get you message out to the ones who are listening and hope the some of the LIV’s come along for the ride.

      1. Need to point out, Jeffstag, something .. interesting .. from the 2012 cycle.
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        I kept running into Obama ads on basic cable channels .. which is really odd because, again, I’m in the Shadow of Chicago .. no *way* Romney carried Illinois .. so why was Obama bothering?
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        The answer is .. it’s cheap *reinforcement* of the idea of Obama as President… and it probably shaved quite a few votes off the overall GOP turnout among those who don’t watch the news.
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        Not sure how the GOP can counteract this in 2016, but .. ad buys on basic cable that target traditional low-information (i.e. non-news-watching) voters would be a good start…
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        Mew

        1. I think the cable buys were global. We were getting them out here in Idaho as well.
          I recall being annoyed that I saw blatantly false Obama commercials nearly every time I walked by the TV, but only saw Romney ads when I tuned into FOX News.

          1. Maybe so, Luke, but .. he advertised where the people *were* .. Romney wanted the people to come to him…
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            This is a no-brainer that Mr. Businessman .. blew.
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            Obama affirmed – early and often – that his supporters were right to support him, and they came out in droves.
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            Mew

          1. In theory, midwestconservative, yes.
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            In practice, only if the Dems are routed nationwide…
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            Presidential campaigns don’t – due to the way electoral ballots are handed out – compete in Illinois.
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            There’s very little gain, according to conventional wisdom, for the GOP candidate to do the expensive ad buys in Chicago and St. Louis needed to try to reach the suburban and farmer voters .. cheaper to do heavy buys in Indianapolis and Iowa.
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            That said, 2014 looks like the best opportunity the IL-GOP has had in a long time to prove they’re not dead.
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            Quinn is a lousy hack of a governor, the economics of the state continue to decline, and .. a solid fiscal-conservative challenger with a budget could do well, especially since Obama won’t be on the ballot.
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            Of course, I expect the IL-GOP to eff this up like they did 2010….
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            Mew

        2. I suspect Daley ends up with the nomination. You know he has Axe down at the graveyards registering voters by 1000’s.

          1. Daley will get the Dem nom, be well-funded, and have all the OFA oppo research he could ever want.
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            Not sure on the Repub side… but I hope they read Baseball Crank’s list.
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            Specifically, Brady needs to be staked out in a corn field and have the list read *to* him by someone with a megaphone… his performance last time convinced me he doesn’t like suburban GOP voters, and doesn’t want to run.
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            Mew

  3. They ARE low information voters. Rush is right, and yes it is that simple. If used only as a pejorative is likely won’t help us much. But we better understand and accept the reality of the situation.

    The Republicans have allowed the left wing statist enemies to take over the NEA, Hollyweird, unions, and the government. There is a reason more people can identify honey boo boo than General Winfield Scott, General Grant, or the CEO of General Mills.

    This is the nation we have created,or destroyed, if you will. It seems to me that US history on a graph would show a consistent gain in prosperity and importance, followed by a collapse starting with GWB and diving to hell after Obumb-a.

    Yes, the nation is filled with low information voters, and yes they are politically stupid by choice. Republicans don’t have time to moan about this, they need to find a way to defeat the phenomenon.

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