Exploitation of ignorance

Recently, I read a very interesting Rolling Stone article The Truth About the Tea Party by Matt Taibbi http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/matt-taibbi-on-the-tea-party-20100928?page=1

It was generally an article about some of history of the party and a lot about the cynical manipulation of the ignorance and intellectual laziness of electorate by politicians, and made the statement “And those people really don't pay attention to specifics too much. Like dogs, they listen to tone of voice and emotional attitude.” For some reason it got me thinking about a speech I once heard at Stetson by Claude Pepper, and an anecdote that he told about this being a factor in one of his early losses. With the help of Google I found the following from a 2005 book by Richard Grayson and 2007 book on FDR by Jean Edward Smith:

in 1950, George Smathers impuned the Senators morals with North Florida voters by calling Pepper a shameless extrovert who's sister was a thespian and who's brother was a Homo Sapiens.

Smathers also charged that Pepper matriculated with co-eds, practiced celibacy before marriage and monogamy afterwards, and vacillated one night on the Senate floor.

http://books.google.com/books?id=P4CJoskzWicC&pg=PA87&dq=claude+pepper+monogamy&hl=en&ei=rrsDToXSB8HSgQexuYCIDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=claude%20pepper%20monogamy&f=true

Smathers of course won the election and Pepper learned a hard life lesson.