by Lance Thompson

In every presidential election I can recall, the Democrats have always been at pains to proclaim that their candidate is "the smart one" and the Republican is the "dumb one."

Gerald Ford was portrayed as a bumbler compared to Jimmy Carter, who served in the nuclear navy. Ronald Reagan was consistently branded simplistic, uninformed, senile and always just "an actor reading lines." Walter Mondale ran on a platform of superior competence against Reagan.

Michael Dukakis proclaimed himself architect of the Massachusetts miracle, while George H. W. Bush was chided for lacking "vision." Bill Clinton, the Rhodes scholar, and Gore were the smartest guys in the room, ready to save the country from recession. Their battle cry, "It’s the economy, stupid," left no doubt who the stupid one was supposed to be. Clinton made Bob Dole look tired and out of touch.

Al Gore and George W. Bush were both Ivy Leaguers, but Bush was portrayed as a dumb, lucky son of privilege compared to the Ivy League-educated Gore (Both were average students, Bush at Yale and Gore at Harvard. Interestingly, Gore’s lowest grade in college was a D in a natural sciences course. This is the man who won the Nobel Prize for his warnings on global warming.)  Finally, John Kerry tried to blame the war, the economy and the weather, on Bush’s stupidity, but the country didn’t buy it.

Consistently, Democrats elevate education and intellect as a vital attribute to a presidential candidate, always pointing out that their choice is smarter than the Republican. But that particular argument isn’t being employed this time around.

Yes, the Obama campaign has sullied John McCain with the "too old, too out of touch" pitch, but none of that seems to stick. People already know John McCain is old, and he seems mostly out of touch to conservatives, and at least partially sympathetic to liberals.

Surprisingly, few Democrats have been making the argument that Obama is the intellectual superior in this race. Perhaps this is because when Republicans, early in the contest, complimented Obama as erudite or intelligent, Democrats quickly claimed that such compliments were thinly veiled racism, damning the black candidate with faint praise. They ridiculed Republicans for being surprised that a black candidate could speak coherently. Actually, we were surprised that any Democrat could speak coherently.

Or maybe the Democrats are saving the "Obama is smarter" argument for later in the race, when they need to bring out the big guns. But usually the intelligence argument has already been made at this stage.

The most likely reason that Democrats haven’t portrayed Obama as smart is because he is so very adept at proving he’s not.

Obama claims his uncle or great uncle (the story changed almost as soon as it hit the internet) was one of the American troops who liberated Auschwitz, when in fact the Nazi concentration camp was liberated by Russians. Obama said he was inspired by seeing civil rights marches in Selma four years before he was born. He credits a Kennedy-Kruschev meeting in 1961 as "helping to end the Cold War," when in fact it emboldened Kruschev to establish missile bases in Cuba. He’s confused about the conflicting political claims on Jerusalem. He believes the physical size of terrorist sponsor states like Iraq, Syria, Venezuela and Cuba make their nuclear ambitions insignificant. His explanations about his associations with Reverend Wright and the terrorist Bill Ayres were inconsistent and dishonest. Obama would be a great motivational speaker, but you wouldn’t want to bet on him in the Jeopardy finals.

If Democrats had a candidate who had demonstrated intelligence or profound insight in any concrete fashion, they would be extolling those virtues constantly, as they have in previous campaigns with other candidates. But this is not the case with Obama. Democrats know their candidate can’t compete in one of their favorite arenas.

In short, Obama can’t claim to be the intellectual candidate because he’s not convincing in the role. He has energized his supporters with promises of change, but he has not backed those promises up with policy. He is young, inexperienced, and easily confounded by unanticipated questions and challenges.

It’s possible that this aspect of Obama doesn’t bother his supporters, who are excited by his youth, freshness and electrifying personality. But you can bet the Democrat campaign managers are thinking about it. They, at least, are demonstrating intelligence by staying silent on the subject.