More on Zogby, Supidity

Rick Shenkman, author of Just How Stupid Are We?, comments on the now infamous Zogby poll showing Obama supporters to be, er, um, stupid. The poll won gobs of coverage out there in netland, particularly among conservatives who love seeing Obama voters unable to answer the simplest of questions and among liberals who challenge the nature of the survey, its methodology, and how bad it makes them feel.

The guy who sponsored the poll, John Zeigler, has made a cottage industry out of anti-Obama screeds and the How Obama Got Elected documentary.

Voting, or Not

I blogged yesterday about John Stossel asking whether there are not some people who simply should not vote. Here's a link to Stossel's ABC bit (thanks to Jon-Michael). See my post below for the link to Stossel's column.

To pick on a rock concert to question young people on their political knowledge, that strikes me as unfair. I notice Stossel didn't go to a nursing home and quiz old people. Why not? Maybe because they're the only ones still watching ABC.

Are some people simply so politically disconnected that we're better off not having them vote?

That raises the counter question -- would you have a test for who can vote, who cannot? The typical response is to spit and sputter and explain how that's not what he or she is proposing, not a test. Not a Jim Crow test. But it comes down to that, doesn't it? Hell, even Jon Stewart posed this one to Rick Shenkman, who wrote Just How Stupid Are We? The book details the political ignorance of the American electorate. I blogged about it some time ago. In that blog you'll find a video link to Shenkman's funny The Daily Show appearance. Watch it. Shenkman doesn't agree with a test either. But it is the natural consequence of asking this kind of question.

People who can't answer how many U.S. senators there are -- and we agree everyone should know this -- can still vote their economic self interest, or at least their perceived economic self interest. There is no constitutional requirement for basing your vote on specific criteria such as those approved by political scientists and journalism professors who blog too much. Sure, this leads to ideological inconsistencies and unexplainable voting patterns, but let's face it -- that's good fodder for political scientists who study this stuff, yet more academic articles to be read by tens of people worldwide.

In a perfect world we would have a deliberative democracy, and in a perfect world Georgia would not have lost to Florida. But the world ain't perfect, and neither is democracy. It's messy, and people who vote who don't know a hell of a lot, and they vote for what some may think are the wrong reasons. I suspect this has a lot to do with Stossel's problem. He'd be less concerned about the youth vote if it was going one way and not the other.

I Was Stupid to Read This Book

Rick Shenkman's Just How Stupid Are We, or perhaps Stupid R Us, has a better title than it does content. I wouldn't call the book an elitist screed because it's not monotonous. The provocative title alone gets your attention, but it is full of vague attacks on regular Americans who fail to measure up to a political scientist's lofty goals, especially if they dare elect someone the polysci guy doesn't like.

It's well written in places, but there's nothing new. I thought the book would include some interesting analyses of political knowledge and why it matters, but other than the ability to read an occasional Pew survey question I can't see much here that breaks any ground, much less new ground. The title was good enough to get him a visit on The Daily Show. Oh well.

I tried to find if Shenkman has published any interesting work on what people know, on political knowledge, anything that includes theoretical or methodological approaches to the question. Maybe it's out there and I missed it. That's damn likely. But the folks who work in this area are pretty well known to me and I thought I'd come across something he'd done in the area, published either in a serious academic journal or one of the major conferences. He deserves better and I should have looked harder.

Then again, it shouldn't be that hard.

For those interested in the political knowledge of the American electorate and what it means to society and government, there are much better choices out there. The titles may not be as cool, but the work is far superior.

Political Browser

I seem to be pointing to lots of other sites lately rather than doing my own analysis. Sorry. I'm in the middle of reading Shenkman's Just How Stupid Are We? and will have comments later this week. So far, the title is better than the book. I've discussed the book earlier, as well as his discussion of five myths about the American voters.

But I did want to point to this cool news site for political nerds and junkies out there (you know who you are). It's done by the fine people at washingtonpost.com and is called Political Browser. The idea is simple: gather all the best political coverage, even by your competitors, and point to it online. I'd call it anther example of the blog effect on mainstream news.

Changes in Political Knowledge

Rick Shenkman, in a Washington Post article this week, sets up five straw myths about what people know and knocks 'em down, one by one. Kinda.

Shenkman, author of the book Just How Stupid Are We?, says the myths are:

• Our voters are pretty smart
• Bill O'Reilly's viewers are dumber than Jon Stewart's
• If you just give Americans the facts, they'll be able to draw the right conclusions
• Voters today are smarter than they used to be
• Young voters are paying a lot of attention to the news

In fairness, a few hundred words in the Post is not enough room to give any of these points the depth and credit they deserve. But there are a lot of apples and oranges comparisons going on here, particularly when talking about change in knowledge over time. Age and education also get all intertwined with media exposure factors such as who watches what program or network. The third point is subjective, and certainly the people who promote deliberative democracy projects would hasten to argue as to whether giving information leads to better decision making (assuming we can all agree what are the "right conclusions").

The column jumps from 9/11 to a recent Pew knowledge test to argue the final point, that young voters pay a lot of attention to the news. David Mindich probably answered this better than most in his book, but even then it gets more complicated than the Post column suggests.

If I didn't have to run out and take care of some business, I'd break this down more. Damn those non-blogging responsibilities.

Two New Books

A couple of new books this summer tell the same story: the American public, when it comes to politics, ain't all that smart.

The first is Just How Stupid Are We by Rick Shenkman, a sexy enough title to earn him an appearance on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show. Funny appearance. But his book is more about "American politics" being stupid than some disappointment in the political knowledge of the general public. And yet, he tells Stewart:

"If only two out of five Americans know that we have three branches of government and can name them, we've got a problem."

There is an excellent Washington Post article on one a more serious book, The American Voter Revisited. Unfortunately for the authors, the lack-of-sexiness title will not earn any of them a shot at The Daily Show.

Work on that title, guys.

But there is a reason for the title in that it's a return to one of the most influential books in political science history, The American Voter of 1960. The new and improved book finds that the American public is not all that improved, at least in terms of political reasoning and knowledge. "You could get depressed," one of the authors told the Post's Libby Copeland. Most Americans in the last two presidential elections have few issues in mind, are only vaguely tied to a party or candidate, and often cannot elaborate their reasons behind supporting one suit over another.

In fairness, there is a smaller set of scholars who argue the public is quite well informed, thank you very much, just not as well as some political scientists would like, or at least not on the issues that they think are so vital. The "high priests of culture," as scholar Samuel L. Popkin says in the article, think in ways differently than the general public. They process a lot of info and know more than we give them credit for, he says.

People simply have more important stuff to do than keep up with the political details that so draw news junkies. Or, as Stewart put it to Shenkman: "We have a lawn to mow."

The timing of the books, on the eve of yet another election, is not coincidence. Both timed it well. One just has a sexier title.

Is the American public stupid?

Rick Shenkman discusses his news book Just How Stupid Are We? with Jon Stewart. Worth the time. Also an article by him is here.