Pug pollsters think Dean would be easy to beat...

[ikojo]

The ONLY candidates I cannot imagine supporting are LIEberman (TOO conservative on social issues) and Gephardt (not really the friend of the working person that he claims to be. Remember July 10, 2003).



http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/16/opinion/16BROO.html

Republicans for Dean....

Eight of the best G.O.P. pollsters think Howard Dean would be easier to beat than the other major Democratic presidential candidates.
Over the past few decades, the electorate has become much better educated. In 1960, only 22 percent of voters had been to college; now more than 52 percent have. As voters become more educated, they are more likely to be ideological and support the party that embraces their ideological label. As a result, the parties have polarized. There used to be many conservatives in the Democratic Party and many liberals in the Republican Party, groups that kept their parties from drifting too far off-center.

Now, there is a Democratic liberal mountain and a Republican conservative mountain. Democrats and Republicans don't just disagree on policies — they don't see the same reality, and they rarely cross over and support individual candidates from the other side. As Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California at San Diego, has shown, split-ticket voting has declined steadily.

[Julien Sorel]

1. Naw, they are actually so terrified of him,

that they are just saying that to try to convince Democrats to support anyone but Dean. They are so terrified of Dean that they're thinking of repealing the 22nd Amendment, and getting Clinton to run to beat Dean in the primaries -- they actually think Clinton would be easier to beat than Dean. That Rove is quite the devious fellow!

[Brucey]

2. From the beginning, the repug brains have wanted Dean,

thinking he'd be easiest to beat. That's one of the reasons I want him to be the nominee AND WIN! Let them stew!

[CWebster]

3. Reverse psychology

Obviously---cast the contender as an easy mark.

The truth is there are more Republicans and conservative Independents
rallying behind Dean than even Lieberman.

it is a set-up. Stand firm.

[chaumont58]

4. Let them keep on thinking that, right up to January 20, 2005,

when Governor Dean will become President Dean.

[Nazgul35]

5. I am impressed that you invoke Jacobson...

finally a political scientist that is of any worth...most who get quoted are no-name hacks who the local paper digs up when they want a quote...

However, I would take exception to the idea that an increase in BA degreed students today means we are better educated. It has been my expeience over the last 8 years, as a student and professor, that college has become the new high school....The level of performance required has dropped dramatically. To provide a few examples:

1) Most students today, who manage to survive public high school, have learned nothing but how to take tests....the most common question asked in my classes is: "What's going to be on the test?" You see, it seems that their teachers in high school, in order to preserve state and federal funding, were forced to abandon cognitive reasoning and go for teaching for the tests...

2) Most of my colleagues shy away from giving students anything beyond multiple choice on tests....the reason is simple. In research institutions, most PhDs are off doing research and the teaching is done by Graduate students who do not want to spend any amount of time reading papers...so students are not required to produce anything that comes close to resembling what could be called term paper quality work, let alone critical thinking...

3) Polls taken have shown that the main reason (70%+) for going to college for students is that the degree is necessary for that all important salary bump the will receive by having the degree....very few students actually come to college for the "Learning experience."

so...just based on these three things, I wouldn't rush to suggest that the American public is more educated because the number of degrees handed out has gone up, if anything, I believe that the American public are more undereducated than they have been in the last 60 years....