Reading articles like this (hat tip) before my coffee has fully started me on my day of sunny optimism leads me to wail and moan my neighbors who don’t take their citizenship duties seriously. Which is unfair of me, I suppose, since it’s far from guaranteed that everyone is going to find politics as interesting as I do. But still, the fate of the world often rests far too often on the shoulders of low information voters, and that pisses me off.
But neither McCain nor Obama can be considered a generic candidate, because both enjoy strong appeal among independent voters. This is particularly the case for McCain, who has largely managed to avoid the stigma attached to the tarnished Republican brand. In a recent poll conducted for NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, only 31% of voters had a favorable view of the Republican Party, compared with 48% who held a negative one. But McCain’s numbers were nearly the reverse: 42% viewed him positively, against 30% unfavorably.