Smart people are politically more extreme: A reader hypothesized that smart people tend to have more extreme political views, and suggested a post on the educational levels of third party voters as a test of this. According to the GSS, Americans with graduate degrees were 12.1% of voters, but were 20.0% of Nader voters. While 2.5% of voters opted for Nader, 4.1% of those with advanced degrees voted for him.



Bush should thank lazy, illiterate liberals! I was interested in how true is the idea that Democrats lose votes because people sympathetic to their views are less likely to vote, and due to high school dropouts not voting as much. Here's the breakdown of the percent who voted in the presidential election in 2000:

Percent voting in 2000
Extremely liberal 60.2%
Liberal 61.8
Slightly liberal 67.2
Moderates 59.9
Slightly conservative 70.2
Conservative 74.2
Extremely conservative 70.5

Look at the lazy liberals! God bless 'em! (Well, maybe not in the case of Bush). They are no more likely to vote than moderates. I was told that liberals are the ones who truly care about democracy, but it's conservatives who actually behave like it's important.

Percent voting in 2000
less than high school 38.3%
high school 60.8
junior college 72.4
bachelor's 79.0
graduate degree 84.3

Wow, people with bachelor's degree (or more) are twice as likely to vote as high school dropouts. It does look like Democrats suffer a lot from liberals and illiterates not voting, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over people not casting ballots who can't spell "casting" or "ballot".