This is something that national politicians can't bring up, but the blogosphere needs to find someone to get out there in a big way. The phrase 'regular people' that is promoted by the traditional media is really just their term for the people that they see as sheep, easy to manipulate.
These regular people were the ones the media was able to manipulate into thinking Al Gore was too smart to be the U.S. president. These regular people were the ones able to be manipulated into thinking that who they really want as president of the United States and leader of the free world was the person running who they thought was more fun to share a beer with.
These regular people were the ones most easily manipulated into being scared of Saddam Hussein launching a nuclear attack on America. These regular people were manipulated into thinking that the real battlefront against Al queda, located in Afghanistan and Pakistan, was in an entirely different area, Iraq. These regular people were easily convinced that taking revenge against Muslim countries we don't like is perfectly justifiable after 9/11.
These regular people were convinced that the failures leading up to 9/11 wasn't a big deal and didn't need to be closely looked into. These regular people were easily manipulated into thinking torture was O.K. because Jack Bauer does in on 24. These regular people were convinced in 2004 that gay marriage was a bigger threat to their lives than economic, tax, and foreign policies.