http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/columnist/shapiro/2004-06-08-hype_x.htmUnderestimating intelligence isn't very smart
<snip>For the past half-century, the Democrats have nominated a series of presidential candidates who were portrayed as boasting glittering intellectual pedigrees, most notably Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Kennedy and Rhodes scholar Bill Clinton. The Republicans, from Eisenhower to George W. Bush, have come across as the party of seemingly indifferent students who were shaky about facts but secure in their values. The personification of this GOP political tradition was, of course, Ronald Reagan.
During the quarter-century of Reagan's political career, Democrats continually repeated the folly of dismissing him as an ill-informed performer reciting someone else's lines. Early in the 1980 campaign, according to the National Journal, Jimmy Carter's image-maker, Gerald Rafshoon, drew up this list of Reagan attributes to be emphasized in TV ads belittling him: "untested, old, dumb, simplistic, actor, naive, inexperienced, Republican, right wing." The naive, simplistic and dumb actor carried 44 states to defeat Carter, a brainy incumbent president who had hyperbolically boasted that he was a "nuclear engineer." <snip>
There are many reasons for the Democrats' difficulties with cultural issues over the past quarter-century. But part of the explanation is that somehow the so-called party of the people became the party of meritocracy. Many voters, whose parents were part of FDR's New Deal coalition, discovered that anti-intellectual presidents like Reagan expressed their values and aspirations better than book-smart Democrats like Carter and Walter Mondale, who carried only his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia in the 1984 election.
Stevenson came to understand the enduring lesson that courting the intellectuals is not a road map for political victory. Democrats may not lionize "C" students, but such students sure outnumber and outvote the Rhodes scholars.
Comment: So how does Kerry sell idea/feeling that he has core convictions and that it is OK to switch leaders during a war. And should he focus on those convictions that look like they are "from the center" - and not from a fringe liberal who is a friend of/guided by that Liberal Teddy Kennedy - or is ABB solid enough to deliver 50+% of the vote?