Following is a fascinating look at IQ and politics from the 2004 presidential race between George W. Bush and John Kerry.

Pardon the overlap of the “Nevada” row. That was a Macromedia faux pas on my part.

Here is a statement from the website in which I just sourced:

The purpose of this webpage is to provide better state IQ data than what had been available – not politics. These IQ’s follow elementary school test results. The most likely reason for the lower IQ’s in southern states is the high proportion of Blacks in those states. African-Americans consistently test at an average 85 IQ level. Since Blacks overwhelmingly vote Democrat, it is difficult to find an IQ-political spin in the chart above. Also on southern states a viewer has provided government data on mental retardation rates being higher there. See also government data on state minority percentages, in response to a professor’s reaction to this paragraph. Also see Gallup/ CNN data showing that Bush got the vote of a majority of college grads.

Another viewer has weighted the above results by population, producing a definite increased IQ/ Democrat correlation. A different viewer has analyzed the same results by looking at the actual percent Rep/Dem voting results in each state, and he concludes from his colorful charts that. “the IQ trendline is agnostic about the candidate.” Perhaps all this is evidence that statistics can be massaged to produce a variety of conclusions! The best voter IQ picture may be from an analysis including population and voting by ethnic groups.

We don’t have to study this chart long to realize the breakdown between IQ in Democrat-voting states versus red states. Indeed, unlearned types like Mark Levin, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and others currently choking talk radio fuel the frenzy of irrational, backward-thinking notions on a daily basis, and to put it mildly, the right does not have erudition on its side. Those who are among the right’s inteligencia are in the minority. They may actually have some salvageable ideas, but again, they are drowned out by the screaming masses, when, in the lack of anything intelligible to add to the public discourse, rant to a fevered pitch, which, is understandable, since, when reason and logic fail, it’s their one and only defense.