"partisan red meat" or "what happens when you're outspent by $300m
This clip, of Obama supporters answering questions on figures and scandals from the past election, has been making the rounds among the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (TM). It’s part of a wider work, called Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected, and essentially implies that Obama won because voters are uninformed or are otherwise ignorant. (A movie is being made based on the “art” of Thomas Kinkade. We needed a website to tell us that people are dumb?)
I recommend my readers–right and left–take a different lesson, though: this is what happens when your campaign is outspent nearly two-to-one because of your own ridiculous, dogmatic support for campaign finance reform. It reveals in stark terms exactly why campaigns spend so much money (over a billion this campaign cycle): because getting your message out to over 130 million people reading thousands of daily newspapers, watching 500 channels, and reading an infinite number of news sites online is really expensive. And if you fall behind, voters believe your opponent’s promises of rainbows, cupcakes, world peace, and stable ocean levels.
addendum: One interesting note is that 57% of Obama voters whom Zogby surveyed on behalf of this project didn’t know which party controls Congress. I.e., a majority of voters who sought change they could believe in weren’t sure what they were actually changing in the first place.