'Low Information Voter?!'

[bermudat]

Jonathan Alter on countdown tonight was telling Olbermann why certain voters don't see what should be

obvious to a 3rd grader. He said they were the 'low information voters'. Is that code for lunch pail

Americans, white Catholic voters, rural voters, blue collar voters, heartland voters and the ubiquitous

values voter/Reagan Democrats? He can call them low information voters, I call them moron-Americans.

[faithfulcitizen]

1. lol.

[scheming daemons]

2. I call them Republicans

[seriousstan]

3. Around here it means any person not supporting Obama. This is how I saw the term used

just 2 days ago.

[cliffordu]

4. I get all my information here. Do I qualify??

[TahitiNut]

7. US Army, E5, 74F20, USARV HQ Company at Long Binh Jan-Nov '69 here.

You qualify. :patriot:

[cliffordu]

29. US Army, 610th TC 101st, the Viking, Danang , Sept 69 - Sept 70

Originally 67A1F


Turned into a Tower Guard. That means I was a sniper, for all you Tuzla apologists.


:patriot:

[cliffordu]

37. UNIVAC???

[TahitiNut]

39. Well, yes... we had a Univac 1000 - fascinating machine. (USARV DSC)

The majority of our (and my) work was on the pairs of RCA 301s and 501s. The Univac 1000 was a card machine ... object code on cards - small memory (1000 words, as I recall). More than merely a glorified reader/punch, it was surprising how much we could do with it. The 301/501 were, of course, early "third" generation. Even so, some of the hardware was archaic. Tape drives had servo (weight triggered) platforms for the slack (not the vacuum tubes I was used to) and were a treat to watch - especially when they shredded 500' of mag tape in damned near an instant when they misfired. Personnel systems ... Officer Requisitioning, Enlisted Requisitioning, Strength Accountability ... we had the Personnel Master File - one of the most classified hunks of information in ANY war.

[cliffordu]

44. Dayaum!!!!

I thought I was an old hand.....When I got out I went and checked out a "training center" for veterans that were going to teach anyone who wanted to be computer operators - on a new system called "Eunuchs"**

I laughed and left, thinking since the military tried to take my balls and failed I wasn't giving this training facility a shot at them too....


lol

And yet, here I am 38 years later on a Linux box....go figure...








** Unix....

[JimGinPA]

10. That Would Make You Slightly Below Low Information Voter...

You'd be classified as a "Linda Blair in the 'Exorcist' head-spinning voter".


:rofl:

[cliffordu]

32. I used to puke like her before I stopped drinking......

:rofl: :rofl:

[TwilightGardener]

5. I don't think he was slamming any particular region, ethnic group or religion--

he was just talking about Hillary's targeted voter base--the woefully (and often willfully) ignorant.

[Tribetime]

6. I'm a white , catholic plumber in Cleveland ,am I a moron?

[scheming daemons]

9. Yes... but not because you're white, catholic, or a plumber.....but because....

you're from Cleveland!


Go Steelers!



;-)

[Tribetime]

13. We'll see this year

[reflection]

25. i heard that!

Steeler fan in Titan country. Going to the 12/21 game in Nashville representing the black and gold.

[TahitiNut]

11. Only if you're a plumber who manages to keep his income under $50K, I guess.

That's be part-time, I suppose. :dunce:

:rofl: Hell, when I pay my plumber I have to wonder what the hell I did wasting my time in college.

[Tribetime]

15. Okay you made your point I'm a moron

[TahitiNut]

28. No ... *I'M* the moron ... plumbing is my nemesis. I have no problem with electrical.

I can even do roofing. Sorta. But plumbing drives me apeshit. Electricity doesn't leak and cause rot.

[Auntie Bush]

36. No, but it can burn you up. I prefer drowning.

Do I qualify?

[Coexist]

8. No, I think low information voter is someone who doesn't

follow politics, but votes. Hears this or that from the radio or a snip from TV and votes based on gathering very little information about the person they're voting for.

[Harry Monroe]

19. We have a winner!!

I've got a few relatives like that. Describes them exactly.

[bermudat]

20. I like your definition best.

[Tribetime]

23. Don't take what I say seriously

I know what you meant

[tammywammy]

22. Yes, good definition

[Mimosa]

12. Scoff and LOSE the game

Look, people, you cannot make fun of the working class Americans and expect to make things change for the better. The ignorant people you mock are those who have been deprived and stunted by BAD SCHOOLS. They are the people. Has anybody seen The grapes of wrath? Would you laugh at the Joad family?

They are NOT morons. And if you think like that, act like that, the Republicans won't. And they will beat you every time.

Class warfare doesn't work. Honesty and sincerity do.

[kmsarvis]

21. If you approve of the "gas tax holiday" ..........

you're a moron.

[sudopod]

33. D:

I LOST THE GAME!

[Ewellian]

41. lol

ignorant ? stunted ? Way to defend the working class!

[RaleighNCDUer]

46. Who are you talking to?

Class warfare? WTF do you mean by that?

Just because you are working class that doesn't make you ignorant. People on this board KNOW that.

But in this world, ignorance is a choice. There is so much information out there if a person is only willing to lift a finger to find it. THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR IGNORANCE.

So I WILL continue to make fun of the "Get A Brain, Morans" guy, because he CHOOSES to be ignorant. And revels in it. And that's not class warfare, because odds are he makes twice the money I do. He and I have possibly ONE thing in common - we are BOTH victims of the real class warfare that has been waged by the wealthy against us. Having that in common doesn't make him any less an idiot.

[beachmom]

47. Ahem, there are plenty of low information WHITE COLLAR voters with very good incomes

I know them. A lot of them voted for Bush in '04.

[Rick Myers]

14. You cannot discount the 'asshat' vote...

:kick:

[barack the house]

16. No he was wiser to call them that. Remember Jefferson and an informed electorate.

It only takes the info to change the world. Print out mailers with novamradio.com and headonradionetwork.com there lies the answer. Pop them through door to door they can save us all. That is the point to the term pc don't offend potential voters just win their hearts and minds.

[QC]

17. It's the new term that the Kool Kiddies use to sneer at The Great Unwashed.

Of course, that's not a good electoral strategy in a country where almost 3/4 of voters do not have college degrees and about the same share make less than $50k, but for a lot of people politics is not about winning but about being superior to the rubes, so that's OK.

[kmsarvis]

24. delete.

[JimGinPA]

27. Judging Here On DU, Hillary Gets Both The "Low Information Voter" & "The High Rectum Voter"

[QC]

30. Neither one of them got this voter.

He knows a corporate flunky when he sees one.

[VolcanoJen]

40. I get such a kick out of the Ivy-Educated Media Elite telling people...

... that Ivy-Educated Political Elitists are talking down to them.

Are you serious with this bullshit?

[ErinBerin84]

18. Altar was not really making a generalization about the base

of "low information" voters..he was talking about the types of people who might find the gas tax holiday appealing, since it does sound appealing on the surface. It is the type of issue that economists are pretty much in agreement about having negative effects on the economy and the environment, but polls well since gas prices are such an issue.

[RaleighNCDUer]

48. And it is good to note which candidates pander to the uninformed

and which attempts to actually inform the uninformed.

[ErinBerin84]

55. yes, I completely agree.

[depakid]

26. Unions used to help to inform voters

and get them to the polls.

With the slow death of the union movement, a lot of these voters no longer have access to information outside the propaganda spewed by the corporate media.

The result has been disastrous for the Democrats (or should I say, for traditional Democratic values).

[MNDemNY]

31. Too bad, they vote, call them what you like, they vote.

[scheming daemons]

43. I'm in favor of an IQ test before being allowed to vote. 100 or higher, or your vote counts half

just kidding....


That wouldn't be fair to Republicans... they'd never win a race anywhere.

[Alcibiades]

34. Who are "low-information voters," and why are they a problem?

Apparently, Alterman was talking above the heads of some people. Low information voters are not bad people in and of themselves. It is a term of art. We know (ok, maybe not DU, but political science, particularly that part that studies the electorate) that most voters don't live up to the civics-book ideal of the informed citizen. We learned this empirically, by asking people what they knew about politics, and we have found that the average person knows very, very little in the way of "facts." They cannot identify members of their congressional delegation, they get the Constitution wrong, they misunderstand fundamental principles such as the separation of church and state, etc.

It is not a code. This is academic language. There's a whole body of literature on these folks. Why are they important? Well, because we know that the people who know the most about politics tend to make up their minds earliest. This means that the election is decided in close years (and lately they have all been close) by folks I call "coin flippers." In the end, they may decide not on the basis of policy, but because they think they would like to have a beer with one of the candidates more, they like their church, etc.

And please don't make this into a class issue. If Alterman had meant the poor or the working class, I think he would have said that. He didn't. Yes, the poor include many low-information voters, and political knowledge is loosely correlated with both education and income (which are correlated with one another besides). Persons having any income level or education level may be low-information voters. We know, for example, that certain types of Republicans are mainly motivated by their economic aspirations, but not by any deep philosophical commitment to the ideals and policies of the Republican Party. These voters know that the Republican party is the party of the rich, and, though not themselves rich, they earnestly hope to be, and voting Republican is part of that. This type of low-information voter votes Republican for the same reason they buy Gray Poupon rather than store brand mustard: they think it's classier.

[bermudat]

38. ding, ding, ding, we have a winner

I do not have a problem with what you've said, but our country suffers, suffers because it seems the low

information voters can be convinced to vote against their economic interests. Low information voters believe

a flag pin made in China denotes true patriotism, that a true war hero (Senator Kerry)was not patriotic and

could not be president because he was intelligent and could speak multiple languages (French). Low

information voters are polling for McSame-as-Bush because, . . . ? I really don't know why they like that

doddering old fool.

[RaleighNCDUer]

50. Yep. Example of a low information voter -

Paris Hilton. (That's assuming she votes, of course.)

The willfully ignorant can be found in any strata.

[Alcibiades]

51. Ignorance isn't always willful, of course

Some people would point out that politics is fairly low on the list of things that occupy the minds of the many, particularly because they are trying to survive, raise a family, etc.

I don't buy that. These very same people have the time to watch television for eight hours a day. They could quite easily use a small part of that time to educate themselves about the political process and to engage in it. Yet it probably does not help that we have a whole system in place to ensure that they don't do that, that they spend their time passively earning, consuming and being entertained.

The rich who are ignorant are more culpable, however, because they certainly have the leisure to become informed and involved.

[L0oniX]

35. LIV = people who watch ABC CBS NBC FOX

[RaleighNCDUer]

42. Low information voters get all their news from TV.

Morons get all their news from Faux TV.

[beachmom]

49. You're right. Didn't Gore say that was the case? And, of course,

reading is the best way to get news, not TV.

[SoxFan]

45. Knock it off

I'm white.
Catholic.
Generally pro-life.
Live in a modest neighborhood in an old mill city.
My grandfather was a Teamster.
I drive a beat up old mini van.
I believe that Bobby Orr and Tedy Bruschi sgould be canonized.
I've never been to a Whole Foods or any other froofy grocery.
My wife works as a staffer for a homeless shelter.
We both graduated from state colleges.
We support Barack Obama.

Please, knock it off with the idiotic stereotypes. All this sort of crap does is reinforce the equally idiotic caricature of Obama supporters as a bunch of Niles Crane wannabes.

[DangerousRhythm]

52. Seriously.

If I were a Clinton supporter who kept being referred to as "low information" I'd start to get pretty pissed. These cliches, the elite latte liberal, the low information voter... painting with such a broad brush is never a good idea.

[roseBudd]

53. There are certainly a lot of voters who are underinformed, the GOP's bumpersticker slogans play well

with this group

Promising to cut taxes is a vote for me and you get a cupcake too

[90-percent]

54. "low information voter"

I would say that means any American who gets their news solely from MAIN STREAM MEDIA.

America's MSM is now the equivalent of Pravda!

Only diff is that at least they knew back then Pravda was bullshit!

I think this newly invented term is going to become a part of current political lexicon-ism!

-90% Jimmy