No, stupidity isn't a party issue, it's ours

WaPost's Jonathan Bernstein says stupidity is a party issue. He writes: "Is Rick Perry smart enough to be president? I have no idea. But I do know one thing: the people who should figure it out are Republicans who care about their party, and they should do it not because of the general election – it likely doesn’t matter – but because a party has a strong interest in not electing a bad president." Because ...  well, party prerogatives and "political careers" could be "severely damaged" as a result. So lemme get this straight. Electing a dummy is a bad idea because the pro political class might hurt itself? Oh the humanity! Bernstein's piece is a clumsy mess. He's no dummy, but you can decipher for yourself what he was really trying to say here. Good luck. What actually bowled me over was the bold assertion that a candidate's intelligence doesn't matter. "Most voters choose on the basis of party and how they believe the incumbent is handling the job," Bernstein writes. Never mind the fact that there is a direct correlation between job performance and brains. (See George W. Bush and, arguably, LBJ's handling of Vietnam.) That said, Bernstein is not wrong about how voters vote. I ask again, how on earth did we get to this very scary place?