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Surveys repeatedly show Americans possess rather low levels of political
knowledge, sometimes even in the midst of campaigns. The 2000 American National
Election Study asked respondents about presidential and vice presidential candidates’
home states. While roughly 90% correctly identified Texas as the home state of George
W. Bush, only about 68% correctly identified Tennessee as Al Gore’s home state.
Respondents fared much worse when it came to knowledge of vice presidential
candidates’ home states. Only about 30% correctly identified Connecticut as Joe
Lieberman’s home state and a mere 19% gave the correct answer that Dick Cheney hails
from Wyoming. Were 70% of those surveyed completely ignorant of Lieberman’s home
state or had they known at one time and simply forgotten?
In that same survey, a paltry 15% of respondents could correctly name at least one
candidate for House of Representatives in their district. Were the rest completely
unaware of the candidates running for office or did the names merely escape their
memory? If presented instead with the candidate’s name and asked to identify him or
her, would significantly more know the person was running for the House of
Representatives in that district?
Learning something and the ability to remember it are not necessarily equivalent.
People forget much of what they learn and unless constantly presented with the same
information, as when the news consistently identified George W. Bush as Governor of
Texas, we should not necessarily expect them to remember information they have little
use for, such as a candidate’s home state. Cognitive capacity has its limits and if people
allocate this capacity on the basis of perceived usefulness, they may quickly forget
political information.
Convention