In the pundit roundup, Rick Shenkman on low-information voters and John S Baick on the incongruities of the Palin/McCain ticket are highlighted.
I have been thinking these last few days that Governor Palin not meeting the media and the GOP making the media the enemy are good tactics. People who vote for the Palin/McCain ticket - on the right or (conservative Dems/women?) on the left - are people who don't read much, and if they do, are already pushed into the direction of the "media is against us" narrative.
The hope is that there are more Dems (men and women) who read newsreports and find that the "maverick" ticket is anything but, rather than swallow the GOP line and vote for that ticket. But given Shenkman's analysis...
I am originally from India, and I sometimes doubt the intelligence of the average voter, whether in India or in the US. Back in the '90s, when I was in India, the right wing nutjobs (the Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP) were rather popular among the majority Hindus (I am a Hindu). So they won a lot of seats in Parliament. But never an outright majority. Initially, other parties shunned the BJP as a Communal force prone to inciting Hindu-Muslim riots, but after repeated elections where multiparty governments collapsed, the BJP eventually came to power in 1998 and ruled for a full five-year term with the help of a few allies. An argument I heard before 1998 was - "we want stability in our country, so support the BJP" - and this from graduate students at one of India's finest engineering schools. In 2004, the BJP was kicked out of power, and replaced with the Congress and its allies - presumably people realized the BJP didn't deliver on its promises. I wonder what 2009 will bring (the Congress has its own faults - a dynastic rule). Maybe the Indian populace will switch between the two major parties (Congress and the BJP) every five years so neither gets too comfortable.
But the best example I have of a smart voting public is the Indian election in 1977. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (Congress) had imposed martial law for two years after a court declared her election to Parliament illegal. In 1977, after intelligence reports that the voters were favorable to voting her back into power, she lifted the emergency and elections were held. But a popular movement led by Jayaprakash Narayan combined with the non-Congress parties banding up together dealt the Congress, and Indira Gandhi personally, a severe defeat at the hustings. This, despite the fact that majority of Indians weren't even literate.
So I still hold out hope for the average voter anywhere...