Those Damned Sheeple!

One of the more interesting Democratic interpretations of Arnold Schwarzenegger's commanding victory in a relatively high-turnout election was that, well, the voters are stupid. Feminist Santa Monica State Sen. Sheila Kuehl told Daniel Weintraub that her Democratic colleagues needed to find a way to "save the state ? from ignorance," while the LA Weekly's Harold Meyerson took a more scientific-sounding approach:

Just about the only clear progression apparent in the exit polling on Tuesday?s election correlated support for the recall with level of education. High school grads backed the recall at a rate of 61 percent; voters with some college at a rate of 59 percent; college grads at a rate of 57 percent; and voters with postgraduate study at a rate of 45 percent. What this may refract is the differing levels of access to sources of information and misinformation about California politics. It may help explain why unions, which have had an impressive record of steering their members into the Democratic column over the past decade, were able to persuade just 55 percent of their members to oppose the recall.

For alt weekly finger-pointing of a rather different sort, try Marc Cooper, or the OC Weekly's R. Scott Moxley. Meanwhile, insufferable novelist Jane Smiley is ready to wash her hands of the voting masses:

The heavy turnout Tuesday might be a good sign for democracy, but it might not. In the end, I am afraid we have voted for narcissism, capriciousness, secrecy, fraud, ignorance and all the other qualities that Schwarzenegger brings to office, and we will deserve what we get. That's the imponderable mystery of democracy.