BTW, if you're interested on the history of the polisci literature on the rationality of voters, you might enjoy the survey article Louis Menand wrote on this topic in the New Yorker last year Michael <<<<<>>>>>
don't think menand adequately surveys existing literature re. above, pitfall, perhaps, of english prof writing outside his discipline...
lazasfeld, berelson (with several other co-authors whose names escape me) set 'tone' for social-psychological approach, while reference to converse is apropos given that his stuff (often written with angus campbell, warren miller, donald stokes) is generally cited as having set 'standard' for concluding that voters lack coherent views, there exists a body of research indicating that his/their criteria were too rigid and that, in fact, percentage holding coherent views is much higher...
moreover, variety of mainstream studies in above tradition (by likes of paul abramson, john aldrich, benjamin page, robert shapiro) show that working people are 'rational' in terms of their support for affordable health care, full employment, progressive taxation and the like...
'masses are asses' ('voters are fools') argument that 'common folk' fail 'ideological' thinking test, that, instead, they rely on party identification has always struck me as begging question - why do people identify with particular party, as such, there's big 'institutional' research tradition following from/building upon v. o. key (who decried social-psychological dominance) that stands in contrast to 'unsophisticated' and 'irresponsible' electorate thesis...
of course, possibility that system is irrational and/or that institutions are unresponsive is generally outside scope of mainstream u.s. poli sci... michael hoover
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