David and I were watching our local returns today and he was getting constantly annoyed that
Louisville kept getting outvoted by rural Kentucky. I mentioned that it was because the uneducated hicks had voted on simplistic
issues like '"The War on Terror" and "Stop Gay Marriage.". People who are functionally illiterate and have absolutely no comprehension
of the most basic of issues get the exact same vote as a guy with a PhD in economics. That's the major down side of democracy.
As a commentator on TV said today, it was a question of Wal-Mart vs Starbucks, and Wal-Mart won.
In case anyone might think that this is all just opinion and not fact, I decided to do some
research this morning, and here is what I found out, courtesy of a lot of pages of USA Today election statistics.
Kerry won in Louisville, St Louis, Kansas City, Des Moines, Nashville, Little Rock, New Orleans,
Memphis, Atlanta, Charlotte, Richmond, Norfolk, Ft Lauderdale, Miami, Orlando, Denver, Las Vegas and Columbia. And yet Bush
won in every one of these states. These states all have one thing in common: a near parity of urban to rural voters, that
is, the number of people in the major cities is slightly less than the combined totals of all of the hundreds of rural communities.
Thus, the demographic in the state that is the least educated, least well-read, has the largest families and is almost always
overwhelmingly fundamentalist Christian swung the vote to Bush. Yes, our presidential election may very well have been
decided by people who believe that the dinosaurs died out because there wasn't enough room for them on the Ark.
The two issues they feel most fervently about, gay marriage and the war on terror, are the ones
that have absolutely no effect on their lives. I am quite sure that terrorists are not planning to bomb Arkaloogee, Arkansas
or Pig Snout, Tennesee. And very few gays are rushing to set up domestically in New Luxemburgh, Iowa or La Chupa,
Colorado. No, the issues that actually matter to them they know nothing about. That's why they buy imported Chinese furniture
at Wal-Mart and yet still wonder why the furniture manufacturer they've worked for for 20 years laid them off..
And just to amuse you here are the quotes from Bush voters on why the chose him. (from USA Today)
The last one is particularly appropriate to our discussion, since it makes absolutely no sense.
"I really didn't like any of them, but Bush is in office, and with Kerry some
drastic changes could happen.. Some people said this is the wrong war, but we're in it now, so what else can you do?"
"I like his family values. I like him as a person. I think his wife is incredible,"
"I didn't think we should change presidents in the middle of a war,"
"I think it's necessary to go over there and do what we're doing to keep our
country safe,"
"I think he has more moral character
and doesn't seem to be as much of a professional politician as Kerry. Over the last four years, I feel Bush made more good
decisions than Kerry made bad ones in the Senate."