And that's where Ahmadinejad got his 60% of the vote. It might be interesting to enable the 'intellectual elite' of Iran living in the big cities to make their displeasure known to the rest of the world. But as long as they have a semblance of a democratic system, their fundies are going to run the place.
Wrong. This is a popular misconception that has been trotted out by the talking heads that the US news networks have gotten to play devil's advocate on this topic. Most of the rural poor in Iran are ethnic minorities, and have a tendency to vote overwhelmingly for the candidate which shares their ethnicity. This is why Iranian elections often result in runoff elections, as the three or four candidates which get all of the various ethnic minority votes push the two frontliners below 50%.
Always draw your curves, then plot your reading.