How can ANYONE with an IQ over 75 not see what a cackling idiot that Sarah Palin is

[LynneSin]

and btw, that is a proper use of the word Cackle.

Are there people in this country that just feel better when we elect the dumbest people to our higest office. I mean if I was having brain surgery and offered the guy that graduated with straight A's from a top medical school or the person who got their degree from one a rinky dink matchbook advertised school - well I'd want the smart one fixing my problems.

And yet there are still people that profoundly stump me as to why they would blindly follow the dumbest kid in the pack when it comes to leading this country.

I just don't get it.

[JuniperLea]

1. I'm thinking her fans are all in that IQ range...

75 and lower.

[ejpoeta]

11. my brother and brother in law and sister in law love her. and they have average intelligence.

i think they want to believe that someone like normal people could be president. they think she is normal. like they thought dubya was normal. problem is, he wasn't normal and neither is she. they are PRETENDING.

[Dulcinea]

50. My dad is very intelligent.

But he thinks she's hot. :eyes:

[HughBeaumont]

2. I think you just answered your own question.

TeaRacists aren't the most effective tools in the box.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

3. She says the things that they want to hear to justify their greed and

their narrow-minded ignorance.

[DainBramaged]

4. Electing dumb people keeps the hidden government intact

:tinfoilhat:

[grasswire]

5. my auntie is a bona fide dittohead, a teabagger

...and she despises Sarah Palin. FWIW.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

6. They love her, in part, for the same reason that they loved Bush

...except Bush became a liability to their election hopes, so they cut a wide path around him starting at the midpoint of his second term. But lately, as we can all see, there has been a renaissance of the delusional, and for many, Bush is back in vogue.

The similarities:

1). They're both "intellectually incurious," A.K.A. dumb as a stump, and for some reason, the right wingers find this honest, refreshing, and endearing

2). She's sarcastic and leans on the fake swagger and pisses of the left, so she gets a pass and a high-five for that alone

3). She "speaks her mind" (see #1 above), which often leads to foot-in-mouth disease, and more endearment.

[jimlup]

7. They like to have someone as dumb or dumber than themselves.

I'm convinced this is part of how Bush got elected.

[LiberalFighter]

8. Because 100 is considered normal intelligence?

[soleft]

9. She's pretty

[spin]

26. That's your opinion ...

to me she is moderately attractive and in what appears to be good shape.

[TheKentuckian]

29. Peggy Hill with her hair did and a 45 year old stripper body

[Jim__]

10. She tells people what they want to hear.

And, hearing her agree with their ideas makes them feel smart. Lots of people will cheer what she says. I don't think many will vote for her.

[Sheepshank]

12. Because *this* is the level of intelligence from the right.....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100818/pl_yblog_upshot/minnesota-gop-republican-women-are-hotter-than-democrats

Minnesota GOP: Republican women are hotter than Democrats
By Rachel Rose Hartman

EmailPrint..By Rachel Rose Hartman rachel Rose Hartman – Wed Aug 18, 1:34 pm ET
A local Minnesota Republican Party operative yesterday waded into one of the signature political issues of our time: "Who's hotter — Republican women or Democratic women?"

The Senate District 56 GOP Party posted a Web video yesterday laying out its position on the hotness question. It leads with images of prominent Republicans such as Sarah Palin, Michelle Malkin, and Michele Bachmann; the soundtrack, naturally, is the Tom Jones chestnut, "She's a Lady."

Then, there's an abrupt switch to the other side of the aisle. The theme is subtly conveyed with the strains of the Baha Men hit "Who Let the Dogs Out?" Photos of Michelle Obama, Janet Reno, Rosie O'Donnell and Hillary Clinton flash on the screen.

the real plan is to keep women around only as sex object, and if they garner a vote or two, better for the party....who cares what they think, what they believe, what policies they promote

[one_voice]

19. ....

seriously :wtf: !!!!

That is so offesive and sexist! How do they get away with this shit.

[Winterblues]

48. They not only "Get away with it" but are cheered and applauded for it.

Republicans are honestly very disturbed people, with almost no morality what-so-ever.

[grantcart]

13. these are people who are threatened by change

They are defensive about their religion and afraid about what they don't understand, which is actually a lot.

[Permanut]

14. Palin and W together

make a whole wit. As do Palin and Bachmann, Coulter and "Dr" Laura, et al, the combinations are endless.

[mike r]

15. And the internet is abuzz every time she farts

or speaks. Same thing.

[AlinPA]

16. Get used to it; she is running for president. Republicans love her. The media loves her.

She is helping a lot of candidates in this election cycle. She will come out of the convention as their candidate.

[4lbs]

17. America is becoming a stupider country.

All the intelligent people are delaying having kids until their late thirties or early forties, or not having kids at all. Then when they do, it's only one or maybe two kids.

Meanwhile, the right-wing mouth breathers that like to have their news and information spoon-fed by Faux Nooz are having four or more kids at an early age. Anything more complicated than watching cars go around in a big circle two-hundred times is too much for them to handle.

[Chipper Chat]

18. Palin/Quayle (Ben) 2012

If elected I'll either slit my wrists or move to Mexico.

[Barack2theFuture]

20. Everyone with an IQ over 75 DOES see that she's an idiot.

Trouble is, there are about 100,000,000 Americans with IQ's below 75, and a few thousand people with LOTS of dough and control over the corporate media, who don't care that she's an idiot.

[RagAss]

38. 100 million people under 75 IQ ??? What is your source for that.??

[Raschel]

21. Maybe you misunderestimate her.

:rofl:

[TheKentuckian]

22. 75 and under sounds about right to me. I don't correlate occupation and intelligence

Nor do I expect that intelligence in one area carries to another unrelated area.

[slampoet]

27. Some of the most ignorant questions i have ever been asked have been by Doctors

about things not in their field.

[Tutankhamun]

49. I've noticed that doctors aren't always the sharpest knives in the drawer.

[taterguy]

23. Have you read her fucking book?

You can't judge someone's intelligence based on material you get from biased media.

It's much more reliable to take it from the horse's mouth, or something like that.

:shrug:

[spin]

24. Boy, I'm I going to get flamed ...

I will simply say she's far from unintelligent.

McCain grabbed her out of Alaska as his last hope of winning an impossible election when you consider the mess his Republican predecessor had left behind. She had never expected to be on the national stage and was totally unprepared. The media, fairly or unfairly, sandbagged her and made her look like a total fool.

She's survived her allotted 15 minutes of fame and instead of fading away, she has reinvented herself and is moving on.

I have no idea if she wants to run for President in 2012, but every time I watch her, she is better versed on the important issues. I may not agree with her, but she can now present a coherent argument. (If I were in her position, I would just simply choose to be a commentator and make speeches. Looking at how fast Obama's hair is turning gray, in my opinion, no sane individual would run for the office of President.)

I admit that it is great fun to pick on her. The problem is that many people in this country agree with her viewpoints and most people dislike bullies. We appear to be bullies! Therefore many dislike what we say and like Sarah Palin. Underdogs are popular in our culture.

In my opinion it would be far better to treat her as just another conservative opponent and attack her on her positions with logic. Surely, we have people who can challenge her viewpoints on a level playing field and win.

Also this constant downgrading of our conservative opponents makes us appear to believe that we are elitist intellectuals who are far smarter than the average individual. The Republicans are promoting this view.

Unfortunately our own party also hurts our chances in the future. When Nancy Pelosi says that we have to pass a bill before we can find out what's inside it, we lose votes. Obama promised change and transparency. These are BIG PROMISES.
Every politician promises a lot of crap, but for some reason people believed and voted for Obama. Rushing legislation through Congress without allowing enough time for the representatives and the voters to review it, is foolish. What the hell difference would making three days or a week available for review of a bill have made? Most people have absolutely no time to read a 2000 page bill but they trust the media to reveal it and report (including the opposition news such as FOX.) When we fail to allow the time, we look like we have hidden many items in the text).

But I digress.

Many will disagree with my views on Sarah Palin. I agree that she is not a rocket scientist. For some reason she has charisma and the ability to appeal to many voters. Both Democrats and the main stream media have attacked and ridiculed her since she was selected as McCain's running mate. She has survived and prospered. There is no way that G .W. Bush was as intelligent as Al Gore and most people of both parties realized this. Still he won. It could be argued that Bush stole the election, but there is no doubt that it was a close election. People often vote for the candidate they like rather than the smartest one. (How many nerds in your high school scored the best looking girl or boy friends or were elected hone coming king or queen?)

Amazingly Bush the Junior got reelected for a second term. All that this shows me is many people often vote for the most likable candidate.

Now we can all sit around and talk about how stupid the people who vote for Republicans are and how brain dead the candidates they chose are. We can ridicule the Tea Party and laugh at their signs. We can pat ourselves on the back and tell each other how smart we are and how both Palin and the Tea Party are uneducated, illiterate and fools who serve as lackeys to conservatives and the big multinational corporations. And we can lose the next two elections.

We don't want to be viewed as a party of extremely intelligent and intellectual people who know think we know far more than the average citizen. Instead, we want to be viewed as the party that represents the poor and middle classes and opposes big business, multinational corporations and the Republicans who serve them.

Many people will tell you that they know some extremely intelligent people, but while they may be a genius in certain areas, they often lack commonsense. We definitely want to avoid that stereotype.

[pintobean]

28. I agree with everything in your post.

Well said, and I'm glad there are common sense people like you on DU. The republicans/conservatives that I know don't really like Palin all that much. They absolutely love her for the way she gets under our skin. The press knows this and that's why she gets coverage.

[spin]

33. Wow. Maybe I can take off my asbestos suit ...

Thanks.

I don't support Sarah Palin and her ideas. I don't feel she is a beauty queen (although she appears in shape and moderately attractive). I agree that her family is somewhat dysfunctional.

Still, my experience has taught me to never underestimate my opponents. If you view them as worthy and find their true weaknesses and exploit them carefully and wisely you will win. If you view them as unworthy they may find your weakness and destroy you.

Sun Tzu wrote an excellent book in the 6th century BC called "The Art of War". It's still in publication and still is well worth reading.

[stanwyck]

46. Again, Good point. But Palin would have to want to be in office

in order to be an opponent worthy of our estimation. And our point is that politics and holding office is not her interest. If it was, she wouldn't have quit as governor mid-term. OR she would have run for Congress. She has what she wants: celebrity without the boring work she clearly finds tedious....all that government stuff. AND she doesn't have to study or have tutors. She just has to show up, act all perky and spunky, and bask in the applause. Maybe you're correct and she will run for office again. I'm doubtful. She would then have to answer questions, which she can't. Not because she's stupid, but because she's just not that interested. She has what she wants now: TV shows, books, and speeches at adoring rallies.

[stanwyck]

30. You're right. Very good points. BUT here's where I disagree

I do agree that Palin is not stupid and that she has truly resonated with many American citizens. However, I believe the difference is intellectual curiosity. Palin couldn't tell Couric one newspaper she read when asked. I'm willing to be you there isn't a person on this board who couldn't name 3 newspapers, at least. Palin has referred to the U.S. "Dept. of Law" and, during the debates, mentioned her role as "making laws" as the VP. I don't believe being mayor, governor, or VP is what really turns Palin on. She's just not that interested to have ever done the homework. She IS very interested in being a celebrity. And she's very adept at honing her celebrity status.
So, yes, you're right. It doesn't matter to her loyalists how smart she is or how much she knows about our country. It's her persona, or what the McCain campaign called her "interesting narrative." She's gonna fight terrorists, create jobs, and keep America great. No details necessary.
She's tailor made for the lazy. Not the stupid.
There's a difference.

[spin]

39. As I said, she was grabbed as a Vice Presidential candidate ...

from a state that was not part of the contiguous United States. She had little reason to ever expect that she would become a national figure. She was TOTALLY unprepared for her role. She blew her chance to become VP as she was unable to handle the national media. She contributed to McCain's failure to win the Presidency although I seriously feel that he had ZERO chances of winning despite whoever he picked for his backup. He had lost his mojo and was a mere shell of the candidate who ran in the previous primary against Bush the Junior.

The media supported a new charismatic candidate who offered hope and change from a failed Republican administration that not only had involved us in an expensive and unnecessary war in Iraq but had also piloted the ship of state into troubled economic waters.

It might have been desperation that drove McCain to pick Palin, and to be honest, she did seem to perk up his campaign for a short period of time. Under the spotlight she quickly wilted. Obama won, but he would have won no matter who McCain picked to run with him. Unfortunately, she refuses to fade quietly away. She has been given an unexpected opportunity and she intends to exploit it to her fullest ability.

She may have lacked the knowledge to be a capable candidate for McCain's VP but she has been given a four year period of time to learn how to play "The Great Game of Politics" at the national level. Fox News has offered her the opportunity to appear as a commentator. She has a reality program about her life in Alaska that will appear on cable TV.

Four years is a long time. With the right advisers and coaches and her appearances as a political speaker at numerous conservative events, she may hone her abilities and become a formidable force.

All I am saying is don't underestimate her and our ridicule only adds to support from her base.

[Denzil_DC]

43. Oh please, this is perilously close to mythology

Palin has shown over the course of the last few years that she is absolutely incapable of taking coaching - indeed, just not interested in it - so forget the idea of any of her handlers being able to instill anything but talking points into her, and most of those she'll either fluff or have to read off her hand anyway. In debate, she can't even handle a Fox pundit if they decide not to play absolute softball. And the one unscripted confrontational interaction we've seen recently between her and a member of the public was a PR disaster of epic proportions.

Look into her Alaska background if you want to see how she's handled herself in every executive role she's held. It's not an impressive record, and that will all come out if she does run for office against someone else with an effective machine in the GOP.

She only ever appears in media opportunities where the rules are stacked heavily in her favor. Even then, the likes of O'Reilly and even Beck can stump her easily, and have done.

She wilted at precisely the moment of her first vaguely challenging interview, and her ratings never recovered - that's borne out by polling.

Never mind advisers, this person is a front for the same neocon lobbyists that backed Bush II. That is where her real danger lies, not in anything that rattles around her head.

As it is, her crowds are dwindling and the shine is coming off. Put her in a primary against any of the likely Republican contenders, against whatever opposition research they have, and we'll see what she's made of.

The worry with Palin isn't that she might be a serious contender for high office (it would mean a serious pay cut and vastly more public scrutiny, which she's proven time and again she can't hack temperamentally, so I'd be surprised if that's her ambition anyway), it's the hateful rhetoric and nonsensical talking points she so easily propagates, which poison discourse if people let it happen.

She's a nuisance and, yes, not someone to be underestimated for her killer instincts and the wiliness of her handlers, but please don't let's romanticize that a few years "tuition" is all it's going to take to convert her into a credible politician. She doesn't need to be credible for her base, but her base will never be big enough to elect her, and as with the last election, she'll motivate way more in opposition to her than she will in her support. And I also think her appeal is overestimated by people on the left who're trying too hard, and sometimes patronizingly, to place themselves in the shoes of those who might think of voting for her.

She's a reality TV star, that's the dynamic of her support and her approach to campaigning. The crunch will come if and when people are faced with the serious prospect of her gaining power, and the choice of whether to vote for her or not.

Maybe by then she'll have done enough homework to figure out the job description of what she's running for. She never figured out what a VP does. That says it all about her educability and curiosity.

[stanwyck]

45. I couldn't have said this better myself! Perfect. n/t

[emilyg]

31. Agree.

[CanonRay]

47. I agree with you, but she's still dumber than dogshit

I can't help myself.

[Solomon]

54. Thank you. I'm not buying it. She's stupid.

Plain and simple. They don't like us saying it, and that's where she gets her crowd, because we say it, but it doesn't change the fact that she is stupid. Stupid.

[Tutankhamun]

51. You have articulated a well thought out viewpoint in your post.

I particularly like this paragraph: "Also this constant downgrading of our conservative opponents makes us appear as if we believe that we are elitest intellectuals who are far smarter than the average individual. The Republicans are promoting this view."

[libnnc]

25. And the moron media insists on telling us

about every dumb-assed thing she or any of her trashy kin does like it's *breathless* BREAKING NEWS!!111!!!1

I want her to go the fuck away and I want the media to stop forcing her very presence down my throat.

:nuke: ENOUGH :nuke:

[david13]

32. I saw it after I heard about 3 words from her. That was enough for

me. She is a total disgrace to the entire political world.
I saw it immediately with her. So does that mean I'm over 75 i.q. Wow.
dc

[RagAss]

34. The Queen of the Cretins !

[mmonk]

35. The answer is no.

So that leaves us with the obvious.

[David Zephyr]

36. LynneSin, get used to it. There are people that love her.

I know a woman in Palm Springs that gets breathless when she talks about Sarah Palin and she uses the words "brilliant" and "intellectual" to describe her. Of course, this woman is a homophobic bigot and, unfortunately, from time to time I have to deal with her in business.

So, the question you pose in your OP is a good one. But, I'm come to accept that there's at least 20% of this nation that is truly sick.

[steve2470]

37. Sarah Palin gives intellectually impaired Alaskans a bad name nt

[era veteran]

40. She is uneducated but very clever

She has shitty values & is shallow as piss on a tile floor. I am amazed at her success but I never thought Rayguns would be elected so wtf do I know. President Palin = redneck Fellini movie.

[EFerrari]

41. She's starting to look like poison at the ballot box.

They'll get that soon enough.

[Cleita]

42. Perhaps too many have an IQ under 75 or it becomes

like that after all the prescription drugs they are using.

[eridani]

44. IQ has nothing to do with it

It's all about sociopathology.

[11 Bravo]

52. Hell, you've just identified her core constituency.

Surely no one is surprised that there are a lot of really fucking stupid people in this country.

[Tutankhamun]

53. A lot of people who like her do so because they believe they share the same values.

Against abortion, against gays, pro guns, love church, dislike immigrants who are brown, etc.

Most of these so-caled values are based on emotion.

The other part of the equation is that she's part of the official Republican-approved/corporate media approved pool of individuals who've been given the MSM/Republican stamp of approval. One tactic often used by the intellectually lazy (her base) is to approve of something/someone because of their perceived popularity. In other words, "She's on TV a lot and Faux News loves her so it must be 'safe' for me to approve of her as well since people smarter than I am say she's really great." This saves one from having to think for oneself. For those with average or less than average intelligence this CAN be a practical strategy. Aligning one's opinion with one's intellectual superiors can have clear advantages.

The RW/MSM are very aware that people tend to use this strategy when forming opinions. They not only take advantage of it, they constantly encourage it.

[LWolf]

55. I get it.

Go back to the Reagan era. That's when I saw anti-intellectualism celebrated, and intellect de-valued. Not co-incidentally, that's when the organized efforts to take public education began. Anti-teacher, anti-public education, anti-union propaganda. Efforts to privatize and de-regulate. The "back to basics" movement that used phonics (and times tables) as a major distraction from the real goal, which was to take thinking skills out of the curriculum, "basics" being rote memorization and drill. The rising of fundamentalists and their meddling with curriculum, text books, and instruction, many of whom got their political start running for school boards.

Three decades in which that movement gained momentum, gained power, and gained public acceptance, until today even many mainstream Democrats are part of it.

How better to develop generations of people who will depend on others to tell them what to think and how to vote, and believe anything anyone the relate to tells them?