Most students of political opinions would concur that it is a rather disillusioning experience to push beyond the expression of narrow and superficial attitudes in the mass public to the cognitive texture which underlies these attitudes.' Despite rising educational levels and dramatic increases in the quantity and quality of political news, the mass public still has little factual knowledge about politics. Many political analysts believe that the mass public ought to know more than it does to perform its political functions properly, particularly in voting for the presidency.2 They measure citizen performance against the ideal citizen model of normative democratic theory. According to that theory, the ideal citizen informs himself fully about political issues and then decides rationally