From: Randall Parker 

In article , jcuccia{at}bigfoot.com says...
> Entertainment may make the culture *seem* more diverse, but I don't see that
> reflected in the opinions of either the majority of Americans or in their
> elected representatives.

First of all, cultural diversity is not the same as political diversity.

> California's different .  I don't see a lot of difference in attitude
> between small-town Louisiana and small-town Ohio (I spent most of the winter
> in Findlay in the northwestern part of that state).

See the article URL that I just posted about how according to some
political scientists are predicting Gore's election to the Presidency. They
are in universites and are using mathematical models that have excellent
track records. Well, they think the indications are extremely strong that
Gore is going to win the Presidency. The article mentions as an aside that
the average American family spends 5 minutes a week discussing politics
with each other. The importance of personal economic considerations in
voting habits as cited in the article is further evidence that most people
are not forming their political views thru very complex thought processes.

The reason I bring that up is that the reason you won't find a lot of
differences in opinion between small-town Ohio and small-town Louisiana is
that most people simply don't put enough into it to develop individual
political views of sufficient depth that considerable divergences would
happen. What's most noteworthy in all of this is just how little most
people think about and learn about politics.

IMO, it would be fair to say that most people understand politics about as
well as they understand computers.

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