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September 29, 2004
AP claims voters ignorant
This AP story claims that many people in the country are uninformed about where the candidates stands on issues.
The story picks a mix of issues it is reasonable for voters to care about and out of left field most voters do not care about issues to prove its point. Which candidate favors more restrictions on abortion would seem to be a obvious answer that Bush is the one. But ending tax breaks for US corporations that make an overseas profit? I guessed right that this was Kerry's position, but is it really reasonable to expect the average voter to know that? Some issues like private investment accounts for social security, an issue I care a lot about and am in favor of, and the estate tax are mentioned too, but those are not that big of an issue right now for either candidate or for the vast majority of voters and I do not think we should expect the average voter to know much about these individual issues.
What issues do I think the voters should know the candidates position on? Iraq (although that may be unfair as Kerry does not know his position either). Tax rates. Abortion maybe. What country Kerry was in on Christmas in 1968 (I am kidding about that one). There may be a few others. Other stuff the article mentions like importing prescription drugs from Canada (Kerry is for it, Bush against it) are by themselves too trivial to expect voters to know. Having a general idea that Bush is for expanding the role of government in health care by a little while Kerry wants to do it a lot or that Bush is generally anti-business regulation while Kerry is generally pro is probably good enough.
In related streams of thought, read this G-File about stupid voters. And these Buzz Machine posts, where Jarvis tries to only talk issues.
Posted by Pete at September 29, 2004 04:47 PM
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