Are politicians really idiots?

By Thomas Gangale
California Progress Report
Oakland, California

Mark Twain once said, "Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself."

Are politicians really idiots? In order to prove that proposition, one would have to subject a statistically significant sample of them to IQ tests, and of course, they would have to be idiots to comply with such a testing program. It is better to be thought a fool than to be proven one.

But they really do appear to be idiots. Write a letter to one sometime and see if you get a response. Chances are you won't, but if it's your lucky day, you'll receive a bland acknowledgement that in no way addresses the issue you raised in your letter. In fact, you'll wonder whether they actually wrote to you or they mis-addressed their unresponsive response that was intended for some other hapless constituent.

A former Senator, cabinet secretary, and national party chair once chided me, "Do you really think people read their mail?" Stupid me! No, I think their staffers read only enough to figure out what the issue is according to some vague metric, then they weigh all the letters they receive about that issue on a postal scale. Below a certain weight threshold, it's not an important enough issue, so they do nothing.

Now, repeat the experiment. Write another letter, but this time include a $2000 check. Of course, the change in response isn't proof of intelligence... even a plant turns toward the sun.

FULL STORY