10 October 2008

Don't Mess with the Lab Coat

The McCain campaign seems intent on alienating constituencies one by one.

At first it was just the gamers. After all even those 8-some-odd million people who play World of Warcraft all look down on gamers, right? I lost the reference, but read an interesting article today where someone pointed out that the number of World of Warcraft players in the United States outnumbers the number of U.S. farmers, who get much more attention come the political season. On the other hand, a WoW server-farm failure only feels like the end of the world. So clearly not a constituency to worry about.

Now it is the scientists. Hmmm, mebbe an MSNBC blog is too liberal to be a fair source of information, right out there with the Huffington Post. How about Discover Magazine, they're unbiased ... I think. No? How about boingboing? Oh wait, that's British. Doesn't count. Oh, thank the gods, at least the National Review tries to artfully dodge the issue.

Though I think The Perfect Silence wins the best quotable quote award:

I can just about hear all the hushed "oooohhhs" from the science education community, like Dustin Diamond had just slapped Jack Lambert with a white glove. Oh no, he didn't!

Gamers and scientists do share two things in common:

  • Information spreads like wild fire within their respective communities.
  • They are very opinionated and vocal when it comes to protecting their turf.

You don't win an election by declaring constituencies to be irrelevant. You certainly don't win an election by saying that funding for science and education is not money well spent.

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