> Apparently you have the belief, common among many
> members of the educated classes, that most people are
> semi-sentient beings, clay in the hands of their
> clever masters and manipulators. I don't share this
> view. I think that in the main, on issues where people
> have first hand information and where it counts, they
> make rational decisions by and large.
I didn't read the article and I was never a Dean booster (just another moderate lib in a race filled with moderate libs). But did you consider the possibility that the minds of rational primary voters could be influenced by Dean's bad press? If one expected the bad press to continue throughout the gen election campaign, that might (quite rationally) spur one to find another, more "electable" candidate. If the Repub candidate receives significantly more favorable press than the Dem candidate, that could easily be enough to swing the election (and not because the moderates who would provide the margin of victory are "semi-sentient"--they'd just making use of the information they have, which doesn't come from The Nation or The National Review).
-- Luke