Yeah but I'm not an economist so it's a big bunch of not my job to some extent. :p

Though I'd love to see a balanced budget I really don't think anyone could do it these days. Once you feed a bureaucracy money, it only grows bigger and far too many presidents have done so for far too long. Maybe NASA needs to sell more space tourist rides or something. Plus if the federal government stops spending, a lot of states are going to be in trouble. They rely on federal matching funds for nearly all basic functions from education to interstate repair to medicaid/medicare.

I was being sarcastic, you 2.....LOL

Actually, since the beginning Obama has kind of monopolized the "well-educated" vote based on exit polls. This link was posted elsewhere on GC, but I think it shows how many people (including this reporter) mistakenly assume that Obama supporters don't know why they are supporting him.

http://thinkonthesethings.wordpress....y-to-railroad/

No mistake. Some don't.

^^ I never said that some don't. I think that the same could be said for any candidate. I just think that the stereotype is fairly inaccurate and there are both specific examples out there and statistics that back it up. I think that there is a huge media push to make people think that Obama support is hallow (and thus dissuade people from supporting him by making them think that they'd be in bad company)... but I have yet to see anything but spin to support that myth.

I think the stereotype is likely fairly accurate. Whenever you're the trendy candidate that is popular with the college crowd, you're always going to have a substantial amount of minimum-depth support.

Your perspective on college-educated voters is interesting. I guess if I were the candidate I'd rather have the Starbucks vote over the Walmart vote.

You might, simply because the Starbucks crowd may be more likely to actually show up at the polls.

However, there's no guarantee that the Starbucks crowd actually knows substantially more about your policies, not at all.

Besides this, the "educated" vote is a misnomer, because there are many in college or with college degrees who I find to be functionally retarded. It's no guarantee of responsibility on the part of the voter, blah blah chow meow. Basically you're making the same assumption you're pointing out in others, just in reverse.

I think that the assumptions I make are more based in statistics than others, simply to say that I think college-educated people are more likely than not to read the paper, watch the news instead of wheel of fortune, etc. Sure it isn't a guarantee and surely we have all known people that graduated from college by a miracle against nature.

I always find it funny how when you say something on GC, it turns into that you said that something was ALWAYS true, no matter what, under any circumstances, because someone wants to pull your thought down off of the shelf and give it a beating. I think the expression is something like taking down a straw man (or close). Anyway, I certainly don't think that a college degree protects you from ignorance, nor do I think that if you are out there without a college degree you can't be one of the smartest thinkers in the country. I think that it is merely an indicator that a person might have more actively engaged brain cells than the average non-college-educated person.

When I said "college crowd" I meant those actually in college. The college educated vote probably splits fairly proportionately. However, these vague ideological messages of hope and change resonate well with those existing in academia, so I'm not surprised that Obama does well with such groups.

However, like I said, that support often doesn't extend very far below the surface.

Well, feel free to show those statistics if you'd like to reference them, but (as we've already discussed) I'm not 100% sure that reading the paper or watching the news gives a deeper level of understanding beyond rhetoric, given Obama's speaking style.

I don't really know what this means (which is probably part of the issue), but if you're referring to the logical fallacy of "setting up a strawman" I don't really think I'm doing that.

I'm claiming that you're making an improper assumption that college grads have an implicitly or explicitly deep understanding of their chosen candidate's politics by nature (or whatever), just like others are improper in assuming Obama's followers are superficial fans of his rhetoric. I don't know if it's "always true" - I assume everyone reads message board posts as opinion pieces barring citation. Maybe that's dumb? No idea, dude.

I'm not saying that college-educated people aren't, on the whole, more intelligent - I'm saying that there's a certain threshold for going "deeper" than rhetoric or simply "I like him!" You have clearly passed this threshold yourself, so I think you're assuming others have as well. I don't think there is any evidence that this threshold is set at "college educated."

Your wish is my command Ksig:

In Wisconsin: "College-educated voters, who made up 72 percent of those polled, favored him 58 percent to 40 percent." http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/...iref=hpmostpop

Another article: http://chronicle.com/blogs/election/...llege-educated

And another: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...,3269133.story

God Bless Google News Search.

Yeah...but I'm talking about Obama supporters.

Being an Obama supporter is cool now because change is cool. So everywhere I go and everyone who talks to me is harassing me about Obama. But most of them don't know why they're harassing me.

And I'm saying that people on GC often tend to read assumptions and words like "always" into a statement you've made in order to attack the assumption or a more unequivocal statement than the original as a means of taking down a person's argument (which IS an example of the "setting up the strawman" argument... thank you for reminding me of the correct wording after so many years since Intro to Philosophy). I don't think I ever said anything about ALL college grads being one way or another, which is how I took your previous post.

Oh yeah, and I'm not a dude. :p

ETA: Sorry Ksig... I realized now that you weren't the one who was setting up my argument as a strawman. It was DSTC... my other post was responding to her reply to me that some Obama supporters aren't well informed. That's true, but it has nothing to do with the point I was making.

First off, "dude" is not gender-specific anymore - you should know that, counselor, if you've been reading up on your Gen-X/Y materials. I can ship you some if you send me a billing address. (Note: I'm totally kidding here, and not patronizing, I promise)

Also, I apologize for this, because I kind of set you up - this is why I didn't just hit up Google News myself, as well - but it's fascinating that Obama was favored by college-aged voters by a 58:40 margin . . . since he was favored by all voters at a 58:41 margin.

I know it's popular wisdom that Obama resonates with the educated, but the only solid statistical evidence I've seen shows that Obama's significant advantage is actually among college students (who are also showing up more than ever before). Zogby, IIRC, pushed this whole "college educated" thing a few times, before some serious statistical flaws were identified (full disclosure: I think John Zogby is a douche, and that's based on professional experiences), but I'm not 100% sure it's been shown as consistent.