its deeper than that. Something has changed. I want to say its the internet. My theory is that every time one of these candidates surges in the polls, people start googling him or her. Then the people see all the dirty laundry. Its why we see a surge, followed by a dip a few week later. It has accelerated! In just 4 years the internet has gotten so important. Remember when they'd joke about Paul being the president of the internet? You don't hear that poppycock no more! In the last 4 years, have you noticed how newspapers and magazines have died. And blogs have risen? We are witnessing some history for sure...Confucius say, "may you live in interesting times."
I agree to an extent, but if that was the case on a mass scale, a person like Obama never would have become President. A majority of people just do not seem to want to wake up to reality, because it would destroy everything they have believed in their entire lives.