RAND PAUL AT CPAC: FULL SPEECH

WRONG BATTLE, WRONG ENEMY

Here is the problem: low-information voters [LIV] are a big chunk of the electorate, especially in the Democratic Party, but the Republican Party isn't free of them either. These are the voters who could not tell you if the national debt is $16 million or $16 trillion. They don’t know anything about the criticisms of how our government handled Benghazi. Ben Ghazi? Isn't he an actor? Fast & Furious is a movie, not a scandal. They know that gay marriage is a good thing because all their favorite actors and musicians think it is so cool! And "assault weapons" are those guns they see in movies, firing hundreds of rounds a minute.

I hope by now that you are beginning to get the picture of what defines an LIV: he or she does not read PJ Media or, for that matter, the Huffington Post or any political publication, left or right. The better-informed LIVs read Us or People. Most of an LIV’s knowledge of economics, politics, and history comes from watching movies, television shows, The Daily Show, and stuff that one of his leftist friends posts on Facebook. You know why President Obama won the election? He was doing local radio shows and The View. He was being promoted by rap musicians and actors.

I get very frustrated with the number of Republican congressmen unwilling to put up a serious fight against the Democrats. Yes, some of them really stand for nothing, and some of them have been corrupted by the knowledge that if they don't support amnesty for illegals, they won't get agribusiness support at the next election. But a lot of congressmen are facing this harsh reality: LIVs are a big part of the electorate, even in fairly safe Republican districts.

If you start saying things that are contrary to conventional wisdom (you know, like the fact that murder rates are less than half of what they were in 1980, and assault weapons are used in a tiny fraction of 1% of U.S. murders), you will quickly become a kook to the LIVs.

It is not at all surprising that when Republican congressmen have to choose between the 30% of voters who are grossly misinformed or the 5% of voters who can actually tell you what the Kelo decision found or how much deficits increased after Democrats took over Congress in 2006, many members of Congress have no choice but to go with the ignorant ones. They have us outnumbered.