The Dog Days of the Presidential Campaign Begin

NRO

quotes:

What I suspect is that this partially reflects the political professional class looking at the low-information voter and wondering what, if anything, will stick. Surely, even those who know almost nothing about politics and don’t care will at least pay attention to a story about a dog, right?

The operative theory about America’s political situation holds that the fringe of each party is poorly informed, and the middle possesses the wisdom, but our numbers show it’s actually the extremes that are engaged — and thus, up on their facts — while the middle is relatively ill informed.

So what ends up influencing the decisions of these low-information voters? All kinds of factors, including appearances . . .

The dueling dog stories represent each campaign making Hail Mary passes to reach these low-information voters.

Comment:

Who wins the dog wars?  It may determine the outcome of this election.  Sigh.

Well, if the other side wants to talk about dogs, I don't think this is to their advantage.  Combine this with Obama's birth certificate controversy, and you've got something.  Ask this question:  What real American eats dogs?

I think the answer, and a conclusion about Obama's authenticity should follow rather easily since no Americans eat dogs.  Not even the poorest Americans eat dogs.  It is repulsive to Americans.  It is unthinkable.

If you doubt this, watch the movie Blade Runner.  A scene from that movie illustrates the phenomenon clearly.  In order to determine if a person is really a person, a test is given to a suspected "Replicant", who isn't human.  In a scene in that movie, a series of questions are asked to this person who isn't even suspected of being a "Replicant", but she fails, and is discovered.  The reason she fails is that she registers no emotion about dog meat being served at a banquet.  This shows how much it is in this culture that the prospect of serving dog meat and one's reaction to that prospect could determine something so fundamental about a person.

The Blade Runner clip is below: