Yes, and it's only too obvious from the perspective of outside the USA. The neocons play on the ignorance and fear of people. They aim at the lowest common denominator. Their vote is in the rural and small-town environment, where people's horizons are more limited and their exposure to different ideas and cultures is equally limited.

Americans who vote conservative are clearly afraid of voting for someone who appears to be more intelligent, more cosmopolitan, and better educated than themselves. Hence, the longstanding voter prejudice against "intellectuals" in the USA. Intellectuals have always proven to be almost unelectable there. It is the political kiss of death in the USA to be labelled an intellectual, in fact. That happened to Adlai Stevenson, remember? In John Kerry's case, the Democrats tried to play the "war hero" card to counteract the anti-intellectual bias of mainstream America, but it didn't work very well, due to Karl Rove's very clever counterattacks on Kerry's "patriotism" (as seen from a certain twisted point of view best articulated by lying bastards like the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth).

Now....this is NOT to say that there are not some very well educated AND intellectual people IN the neo-con ranks. There are. But that is not the image they market to the average voter. Hell no! They market a "dumb as you are" image...a "just regular guy who can't pronounce 'nuclear' any better than you can"..."you can depend on this goofball, because he's just like you are. He puts his pants on one leg at a time, he barbecues, he doesn't speak pussy languages like French, and he basically dislikes intellectuals and foreigners because he, like you, knows that they are seriously unamerican and devious. Vote for this bozo! He won't do anything you wouldn't do."

And it works! Yup, there are some very clever people indeed in the neo-con establishment. Pity that they are completely lacking in scruples of any sort.

This kind of approach to politics does not work nearly so well in Canada, where intellectuals are respected, and it's a dead duck in Europe. The last guy in Europe who did really well in politics with such an approach, I believe, was Hitler. Call it the romantic ideal of "the uncultured primitive", the man who knows "in his heart what is right", and doesn't have to apply any critical thinking or analysis to complex situations in order to reach a decision.

Voters who are primitive fools fall for that sort of thing, because it's so much easier than thinking, and it really feels good!   Worked for Hitler. Worked for Mussolini. Why not here?