neo-neocon Says:
February 10th, 2015 at 6:31 pm

DNW:

I have almost no friends who would ever consider voting for a Republican, even if that person had five PhDs, so the first question is completely moot.

So it would be pointless to ask as to whether they judge that Walker is in principle as intellectually qualified to hold office as Teddy Kennedy or Joe Biden?

Would they refuse as an intellectual exercise on their part? Probably. They would likely say they’d rather have Alcee Hastings as president than Walker.

” For the small group of what for want of a better term I’ll call Reagan Democrats, the criticism of him for his lack of degree could backfire and cause people to like him more. Not because they have degrees or don’t have them (although I suppose that could enter into it, too), but because they realize degrees are irrelevant as far as common sense and smarts go.”

The Reagan Democrats, as literal Democrat Reagan supporters, prosperous skilled trades blue collar workers from supposed bellwether counties like Macomb County, Michigan, are either mostly dead now, or in nursing homes.

Some of their children, fewer in number proportionately, and either better educated having moved up, or worse off, having been shut out of a dysfunctional economy, may vote for Walker. But, if so, it will likely be because that they are pissed off at being played for fools by their own “catch the wave” naivete in voting for Obama.

Or not. A not-really-Cherokee Cherokee woman may excite their emotions and yearnings for government love just as much as Obama did.

Some people never learn or take responsibility for their own lives. That’s why they are Democrats in the first place.

Thought I’d share this from this morning’s [e-mail] in box …

E-mail header:

Subject: Thursday’s Headlines: As Scott Walker mulls White House bid, questions linger over college exit
Date: 2/12/2015 7:18:24 A.M. Eastern Standard Time
From: email@e.washingtonpost.com

Body of mail:

The morning’s most important stories, selected by Post editors and staff – Thu., Feb. 12, 2015

View in your Web browser

TOP STORIES

Putin announces cease-fire deal with Ukraine
MOSCOW –European leaders announced Thursday that a cease-fire deal beginning …

Within NBC, an intense debate over whether to fire Brian Williams …

BEIJING – When Zhang Yufen’s husband finally admitted to having an affair and left her to live with his mistress, clearing…

CIA scales back presence and operations in Yemen, home of potent al-Qaeda affiliate …

As Scott Walker mulls White House bid, questions linger over college exit MILWAUKEE – Scott Walker was gone. Dropped out. And in the spring of his senior year. In 1990, that news stunned his friends at Marquette University. Walker, the campus’s suit-wearing, Reagan-loving politico – who enjoyed the place so much that he had run for student body president – had left without graduating. Read full article »

I have almost no friends who would ever consider voting for a Republican, even if that person had five PhDs, so the first question is completely moot.

As for your second point—I didn’t mean those blue-collar Democrats who, likewise, are solid yellow-dog Democrats. I didn’t make myself clear enough, but I’ll clarify now by saying I meant the sort of blue-collar Democrat who ended up voting for Reagan, the sort who is more moderate and middle-of-the-road. There are far fewer of them than there were in Reagan’s day, but they still exist.

In summary: I think Walker’s lack of degree won’t bother conservatives and Republicans, and those Independents who lean Republican. Liberals and the left were never ever going to vote for him anyway. So for all those groups his lack of degree doesn’t matter one way or another. For the small group of what for want of a better term I’ll call Reagan Democrats, the criticism of him for his lack of degree could backfire and cause people to like him more. Not because they have degrees or don’t have them (although I suppose that could enter into it, too), but because they realize degrees are irrelevant as far as common sense and smarts go.

DNW:

I actually think the college issue won’t gain any traction, and that it could even backfire with blue-collar Democrats, whom the Democrats need to retain in order to win in 2016.”

Ok two issues

1, no traction in general

2, backfire with blue-collar Democrats

Regarding 1. Try it out with your friends. If they know anything about Walker they probably “know” that he is an “enemy of unions” and lacks a university degree.

See whether they will admit he is “intellectually qualified” to be president, if not in their estimation, “ideologically”.

And really who needs traction when you have a media drumbeat that will continue forever regardless?

Regarding 2. What, blue collar democrats? They died off 20 years ago.

Do you think that the current population inhabiting that social niche, or the present version of it, i.e., people who acknowledge that they are not competent as a class to deal with their own medical issues, really will insist that someone like themselves [presumably] in one way, yet conservative in a way that they are not, is smart enough to be president?

Do you really think that they will say to themselves that: “Scott Walker a Republican, lacks some of the same credentials I lack. Now he is being attacked by the people I generally politically identify with for that shortfall, rather than on the issues. As a person who lacks these credentials, I feel slighted. I will stand in solidarity with Scott Walker, conservative, Republican, because it would hurt me if people said those nasty and slighting things about me.“

I actually think the college issue won’t gain any traction, and that it could even backfire with blue-collar Democrats, whom the Democrats need to retain in order to win in 2016.

Well, at least a straddle strike is plausible in this instance.

And it was intentional anyway.

And will be dealt with buy the media in the same manner.