I don't know if they are undereducated. Maybe undereducated on the issues. But yes, millions of Americans are struggling to make ends meet with 2 or even 3 jobs, raise their children, and just try to have 5 minutes of fun once in a while. That they are not paying close attention and/or vote based on the last few ads they see is not surprising.

by then the richest [expletives] in America have shoved their [expletiving] money into attack ads

Not that the everyday pundits educate anyone any more than these ads. Or NBC nightly news, for that matter. In fact, the reasons polls are used so often is it comforts these idiots into thinking they are "normal" or "average".

I have a brother in law who is highly educated claims to be an independent and doesn't pay any attention to politics until a couple of weeks before the election. Then he said he tries to discern who the "best person" is. I suggested to him that this wasn't the most intelligent way to make political choices and beyond that trying to discern who the "best person" was isn't likely to maximize his policy preferences. I know he voted for Obama in 2008 but he was clearly flirting with Fiorina in 2010. I rather bluntly told him that he was talking about canceling out his Obama vote by doing that. Independents are very frustrating.

No way a WaPo reporter just "happens" into Buddy Foley without knowing who he or she's talking to. Guy's a pretty well-known fixture in Seattle. (He "handles/wrangles" ladybugs, by the way.)

Not certain why they couldn't simply describe him as a "colorful local character," but it's amusing to see him show up in the pages of the Post.

supporter named Buddy Foley, 65, a pianist and handler-wrangler who won't say what he handles or wrangles (besides the Stella Artois in his hand).

Stella Artois? Someone has weathered the recession just fine.

Meanwhile,

JUST SAY NO to tax cuts for the wealthy. 

Republicans destroyed the economy by lax financial regulation coupled with tax cuts for the wealthy which forced great deficits upon the country.  Now they want to give the rich even more money.

 The rich have had a free ride since Reagan when the highest tax rates were cut from 70% to 35%.  Now the country and the economy are in trouble.  It is time the rich pay their fair share.

There is no reason to give Paris Hilton more Gucci handbags, music industry execs another Mercedes Benz, or Donald Trump additional Rolex watches when people are unemployed, losing their houses, and cannot afford college or health insurance.

Please, tell your elected officials you not only oppose the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the rich, but would like to see the top rate restored to the pre-Reagan level. The alternative is a continued reliance on selling goods and services to the über rich, a weak strategy at best - after all one needs only so much Tiffany jewelry. 

"'Gee, I better start watching TV to get some news,'"

I wonder if we'd be better off paying less attention to Fox, and more attention to the traditional network news. A quick Google search reveals that, on a typical evening, Fox News has 2 and a half million viewers, while the evening news on CBS, NBC, and ABC have a combined audience of about 20 million.

Since most people have cable, broadcast news sometimes flies under the radar, but this is where many middle-of-the-road people get their TV news. If we want to get the media to be "Fair and Balanced" we'd be better off getting ABC, NBC, and CBS on the bandwagon. Fox, as a propaganda outlet, is a lost cause. Broadcast news, even though it is corporate owned, might respond more readily than cable news to pressure from the public regarding journalistic integrity. ABC screwed up by hiring Brietbart, but they quickly backpedaled due to public outcry.

Rather than trying to imitate Fox, maybe ABC and the others can find their niche by returning to their roots, and actually be fair and balanced - a source of news that the public can once again trust. (And I'd like 10% of their ad revenue if they try this and it proves a ratings bonanza.)

We are in bleeping bleeping trouble aren't we?

re: We are in bleeping bleeping trouble aren't we?

From 2009 NYT Media Decoder Blog:

"The fact that the overall audience declines are smaller than among younger adults underscores one aspect of “Dancing” that has never been emphasized by ABC: it is the network’s oldest show in terms of median age of the audience. Last year, the median age of the audience for the performance show was 55.2. This year, it is up to 57.1. The results show had a median age of 55.5 last year, and now it is 58.1."

I know some 70 year old Teabag types - when asked what they watch on TV, the first show mentioned was "Dancing With the Stars." Must be a Tea Party Thing.

Or, as Brian says in Family Guy, "Lois, undecided voters are the biggest idiots on the planet."

Makes sense, delNorte. "Dancing With the Stars" is kind of like "The Lawrence Welk Show" with T&A.;

A "handler-wrangler" is what you city-slickers would call a "cowboy".

From the Foley quote "Gee, I better start watching TV to get some news," -- small wonder the country is in trouble. Looking to TV for anything more than entertainment is a losing proposition. If these last minute, "undereducated" voters base their decisions on the "information" provided by television, small wonder they vote the way they do.
BTW, I don't wish to imply that info gleaned from the web or print media is less prone to marketing, manipulation or lies, but in TV form, it excites the emotions, and it feels more real. (Hot vs. cool media, if you will, as per McLuan(?) People are less inclined to analyze what they see on TV, and that's the "undereducation" in my mind. Might as well let them buy stuff based on advertising . . .

Shorter Buddy Foley: Idiot America strikes again.

-Z

I just watched some of the usual suspects on PBS News Hour discussing the Republican "wave".

Somebody was comparing the Tea Party to similar populist movements in the past, such as - ahem - the John Birch Society.

Anyway, what shocked and awed them was that fact that the Tea Party had turned their angry message into electoral victories so swiftly. For some reason that had never happened before.

No surprise that these geniuses managed to discuss that particular subject without once mentioning Fox News.

Too bad Mr. Foley isn't a plumber, or maybe he's lucky he ain't. In any event, the education referred to here is nothing but basic civics; how does government work where the rubber meets the road. I don't know how it is in the country generally, but we had a whole year of this stuff in Hight school. No one who has even a passing familiarity with these mechanisms would talk about voting for the person with a straight face. I mean TPers may be factually wrong about most issues, and be motivated by this to support policies which I find abhorrent, but they at least know, by and large, how to support like-minded candidates.

I think the point is that it's no the political junkies or the hard core voters on either side that decide the elections. Its the people who don't pay a lot of attention.

The Democrats need to learn to simplify their message and repeat it over and over.