He is scum, but he is their scum

Many of us in the USA are wondering how William Jefferson of Louisiana could get the most votes against all other candidates in 2006 after being caught on video accepting a bribe and then having the bulk of that bribe found hidden in his freezer. Those same people are wondering how Venezuela can reelect Chavez whose socialist pet projects have done nothing to resolve the long term problems of crime and poverty and have piled onto the country's recurring costs which will come back to haunt them when the volatile oil commodity market fluctuates against them. This is because, although they are scum, the people who vote for them choose them because these leaders are their scum. To turn their backs on these scum now would mean that they are turning their backs on themselves and admitting the "man" is right. For people like this, it is harder to fight the counter culture against perceptions of authority and face reality than to go with the flow like lemmings.