If you missed it, actress Lindsay Lohan came out in support of Mitt Romney this week telling reporters at a party in Los Angeles that she thinks, “unemployment is very important now,” which is why she plans to support Gov. Romney. The endorsement didn’t garner much media attention because it didn’t elicit the same types of reactions Stacey Dash received for her support of Romney. Plus, at the end of the day it’s just celeb gossip, right? Maybe not. Business Insider has some interesting analysis:
While most would, at first glance, write this off as gossip, it's the latest instance of an evolving trend that jeopardizes President Obama's chance at winning the White House.
Lohan, by all accounts, is a typical low-information voter. And low information voters, like it or not, will decide this election.
The first person to pick out this trend was Dave Weigel at Slate after sportswriter Buzz Bissinger endorsed Romney after his positive debate performance. Bissinger, Weigel notes, was a low information voter. He ignored the election, watched the debate, took everyone's word for it on the facts, and backed Romney.
As Weigel notes, it's not like either side was falling over themselves to score the lusted-after and enviable Bissinger endorsement.
But Bissinger is emblematic of millions of Americans. These people don't follow politics, don't understand the issues with depth, and plan to vote based on what little information they've gleaned.
More importantly, the Obama camp should be worried – very, very worried:
Lohan is a low information voter convinced that (a) employment is really important, (b) thinks that employment is not being sufficiently handled by the White House right now and (c) thinks that Mitt Romney is better equipped to handle employment.
That arguably logical sequence is all that it takes for a low-information voter to support Mitt Romney. The thing is, there are millions of voters like her. That should terrify the Obama campaign.
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