# 89 Aberration and Education

Aberration:

Yesterday I posted about John Zogby's most recent poll indicating that John McCain was ahead by one percent. My point was that Zogby's result was likely an aberration. Guess what? Today, Zogby has Barack Obama ahead by ten percent nationally.

Not only that, but Obama is currently tied or ahead--sometimes by double digits, sometimes by one or two percent--in many states that four years ago voted for dubya but have become battleground states this election: Virginia, Iowa, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico (all five of which I already put into Obama's column a few weeks ago); North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Indiana(!), Missouri. Even North Dakota is apparently only weakly supporting McCain. If all the states in which Obama currently leads or is tied go for him, he could receive 380 electoral votes. They probably won't, but I find it an exciting prospect that he might more than double McCain's electoral total. More likely, Obama will receive in the high 200s, or low 300s. Unless the polls are way off, Obama should win. Certainly, if he wins Pennsylvania and Ohio, the race is all but over.

Education:

Surveys taken by the pollsters indicate very clearly that the people forming one large bloc of McCain/Palin supporters are less educated than the largest bloc of Obama supporters; are lower- to lower-middle class economically; and yet are among the most fearful of tax increases (despite the fact that their incomes aren't sufficiently high to have to pay much of a tax).

There is a terrible irony in this information. I know and have worked with people who barely can afford food and shelter, who have a high school education and maybe a few college credits, but who consider and identify themselves as Republicans. Yet these people, with less education than is likely needed now to succeed economically, are not stupid. In fact, some very smart people are handicapped from thriving economically by being under-educated. They haven't had the opportunity to season their current life views and ideas with the greater exposure to diverse ideas that increased education provides.

So why are they Republicans? Certainly, dubya's administrations have not been kind to public education, though private and parochial education seems to have thrived during his eight years. From my discussions with some of these folk I conclude that they have accepted the concept of the American dream: if they work hard and start their own small business, they too can become wealthy. It doesn't happen for them, but I guess this has to be the dream they have to hold on to, in order to keep going.

So they toil, sometimes a little successfully, often unsuccessfully, at starting their own businesses, and keep the dream in sight. In the meantime, riches pass them by, but they keep voting Republican. The fear of tax increases continues to impose itself on their psyches, and they keep voting Republican.

I wonder, today aloud in writing, if there is a way to provide enough education to help these economically and educationally deprived individuals to understand that, currently at least, they're concerned about matters that truly don't affect them, and that their actions based on those concerns (voting Republican to avoid increased taxes, for example) actually perpetuate their economic and educational subsistence.

To me it seems logical that the economically deprived would want a change, would want a president who will try to even the playing field and, yes, "redistribute" the wealth by reducing tax breaks for those who don't need the tax breaks, and increasing tax breaks for those who need the extra money to live on.

Perhaps on Tuesday we'll see if some of this logic prevails, or if we continue to go along with the same-ol', same-ol'.

-- triton --