Quite a nice effort from the Chicago idea factory. That Romney has contempt for the voters is self-evident: anyone who would vote for this man, after this campaign, either isn’t paying attention or is driven by something other than reason:
Please share widely!
SomervilleTom says
Al Gore described the phenomena in his 2007 book The Assault on Reason — the Romney campaign is targeting an audience that doesn’t care about whether these claims are true or not.
The Romney campaign is hoping to get votes from low-information voters who prefer having their prejudices stroked over reason and truth. Scott Brown is doing the same, and it is the hallmark of an Eric Fehrnstrom campaign. This has been, from the beginning, a campaign that cares only about winning. So much for “family values”.
In my view, the real tragedy in this campaign is the equally amoral silence of the media about such flagrant lies.
David says
this particular lie by Team Romney appears to have been a bridge too far for the media in the targeted area. Headlines like this one and editorials like this one in Ohio papers are the bitter harvest of Romney’s incredibly cynical strategy.
fenway49 says
would ever call him out. It reminded me of the media’s shameful performance in 2000 and 2002-03.
cos says
“low information voters” may not be following politics or political issues in much detail, but everyone follows things they’re actually interested in and don’t think of as “politics”. People follow TV shows, sports, new developments in their professional field, etc. If you live in Boston and there’s big news related to Harvard, you’ll probably know about it. And if you live in Ohio cities that Romney is targeting, you probably follow the auto industry. What’s going on at GM and Chrysler isn’t just political campaign fodder, it’s a relevant local issue, the sort of thing people talk about even when there are no elections coming up.
SomervilleTom says
I meant something stronger, though.
The segment targeted by the Romney campaign is comprised of voters who don’t want to know the truth. They may follow the auto industry, but they want to believe the various mythologies that the GOP promotes — exposing them to the truth only makes them more hostile.