How Obama got elected: a post election Zogby poll of Barry O voters

Palins "scandals" were sexy tabloid-style stories.

Obamas "scandals" were dry, political stories.

Apples and oranges.



Do you think the voters, if they'd been asked, would have known the details of troopergate, or Palins history when it comes to earmarks?

Do I think the people that should be voting knew the details of those stories? Yes.

So I think the vast majority of people who did vote had any desire to learn about those details, for either side? No.

And therein lies the problem. We no longer have an informed electorate. We have the lowest common denominator that can pull a ballot lever and has the same voice as the person that cares enough to learn about the issues and politicians that pander to get that vote.

Here is the video of the poll being taken

[YT="Must watch! How Obama Got Elected.com "Informed" Obama voters"]53C2-b8BOLs[/YT]

Good riddance. Now no one will take Zogby seriously, except right-wing loons...

Much like noone will take ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, and CNN seriously anymore since they were all in the tank for Obama.

Or.... they voted based on the candidates platforms, or after watching the debates, and didn't take an interest in both sides attempts to smear each other.

The Palin stuff is the exception that proves the rule, because Palin stories were everywhere in the beginning.

Where do you get the idea that they were unaware of the claim? The way they posted in the OP it doesn't come off that way.

And a couple of those questions are pure

Obviously nonsense, as you point out in your very next line.

Link?

Pray tell what requirements you guys would have on voting.

The only reason that you didn't have universal suffrage was because the founding fathers were not godly geniuses, but were instead men in the right place, at the right time with some good ideas, but ultimately too cowardly or not strong enough to follow their stated views through to their ultimate conclusion.

How exactly does restricting the vote to men who own land make the voting population more informed?

Yes, it's absolutely shocking voters are more likely to know the dirt on opposing candidates than their own.

I'm at how pissy this poll has made the Obamatons.

Obviously nonsense?



There's been no disputing that the get-together at Ayers' house is where Illinois State Senator Alice Palmer said "I'm stepping down and Barry O here is going to replace me" and even Ayers himself has said that Obama's first fundraiser was held at his place.

Okay. Now take a deep breath, try to think what you just said, and answer the following question truthfully:

Do you really believe that there has been no partisan dispute about the accusation that the fundraiser at Ayers' place was the event that "started" Obama's campaign? You really think that everyone on WF who ever participated in one of the many threads on the issue -- and is thus of course aware of the story -- believes that this is true, and would thus choose that option in a poll?

Change that to say that "everyone on WF who wouldn't say that the sky's purple and the sun rises in the west if they'd think that it'd somehow benefit Obama" and I'd say yes. This allegation has been vetted and confirmed by investigative teams from our major news sources, only the completely delusional doubt its truthfulness.

Pastor Wright and the Weatherman Underground blowing up buildings were dry, political stories?

You are a complete loon.

Nobody was asked for any details anywhere along the way. They were just asked if they were aware of the claim.

More pathetic fail.

I always failed to understand how someone using the edit button to change the nature of a quote somehow thinks that's clever or impressive.

It's not even style over substance. It's about as sublime as a retarded kid shitting himself.

Oh well, I guess it's better than the facepalm which was the 14th doctors go to witticism for the better part of last year.

Actually they were asked for details, being asked who was involved in each thing.

So knowing that Sarah Palin was the one involved in troopergate is the same thing as knowing the details of troopergate?

No, not really.

They were asked to name which candidate was involved in which story. That's not at all asking them to elucidate that details of the story itself.

No, they were asked to pick factual statements, i.e. they were asked whether they believed each claim.

Completely wrong. It takes two seconds to click the link for the PDF that gives the questions.

It was a survey of which candidates were associated with which stories in the media. Personal belief had nothing to do with it.

This is why I so often question your ability to read English.

Because you so often miss the point or pull something completely out of your ass.

1. It's really unfortunate that more people don't know the ins and outs of campaign coverage. But it's also reality.

2. Does anyone think McCain voters would do any better on this specific survey, let alone a survey that was more geared to presenting things about McCain and Palin that they might think were unfair?

3. Some of the survey results, as commented on in the opening post, are not quite accurate. For instance, with the "Which party controlled both houses of Congress" question, people had three choices: Democrats, Republicans and neither, not just two. It doesn't make it much better that only 42.6 were able to correctly identify Democrats as being in charge, but it does make it better than just blind luck (33 percent).

Similarly, "none" was an option when it came to "Which candidate won an election by getting their opponents knocked off the ballot?" raising that to a 1 in 5 shot in just guessing.

More to the point, these questions had a "Not sure" option that clearly lots of people who chose so as to be honest and not guess when they were unsure.

4. It's funny how we often hear about polls likely being inaccurate because of oversampling when they result in things that favor Democrats but not a peep here about how about 37.9 percent of these people are born again Christians, 17 percent considered themselves libertarian, conservative or very conservative and about 14 percent consider themselves NASCAR fans. Somehow I doubt that Obama's support among those groups was anywhere that high. And where's the arugala-eating East Coast intellectuals who were supposedly the only people who might vote for Obama?

5. It should be pointed out that 81 percent of the Obama supporters in this poll knew that Obama had said government should redistribute the wealth, and 53 percent knew about Biden saying Obama would be tested by a major crisis. So with the other answers on which they did well, it seems like a lot of the things that were covered in the last couple of weeks in the campaign or joked about on SNL, they knew. Things that weren't, they didn't.

6. Out of the 12 questions, only three are substantial about policy: who controls congress, who said their policy would bankrupt the coal industry and raise energy rates, and who said government should redistribute the wealth.

No. Here are some of the questions, directly from the pdf:

"Which candidate said they could see Russia from their house?"

"Which candidate had to quit a previous political campaign because they were found to have plagiarized a speech?"

"Which candidate said their policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket?"

"Which candidate started their political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground?"

If an interviewee believes that although some people made those claims, Palin in fact never said she could see Russia from her house; Biden didn't have to quit his previous campaign for that reason; Obama didn't say his policies would bankrupt coal; and Obama didn't start his career at Ayers' fundraiser; then that interviewee will answer other than with Palin, Biden, Obama and Obama respectively, although he might be well informed about all of those stories. If the interviewee answers "None of the above" on each question, Zogby will count that as one correct and three false answers, because Zogby interprets Palin's words favorably, while buying Obama's and Biden's critics' views on their stories.

What you're outlining would have to be phrased, "Which candidate was accused of starting their political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground?", and so on.

I'm looking at the PDF and none of the questions specify that the respondents are asked for "Which of the following are true, as reported in the media?" or some sort of disclaimer like that. (Of course, it doesn't have any intro to the questions linked either).

In the absence of such a disclaimer, I would take it as asking for my personal belief if asked these questions. Wouldn't you?

Is there another PDF linked besides this one:

http://www.zogby.com/news/wf-dfs.pdf

Interestingly enough, people were not asked about Jeremiah Wright in this survey. I would bet that 90 percent of people would have gotten correct any question about him, from "Which candidate had to disassociate themselves from a pastor and mentor of 20 years?" to "Which candidate had a pastor who said "God damn America!"

As for the Weatherman Underground "blowing up buildings," the story was Obama's association in the past 10 years with Ayers and Dorhn, not the intersting blowing up building part. 44 percent did know that was the answer the poll took as correct. Another 12 said they were unsure.

All opinion polls are based on personal belief. Hence the name 'opinion poll.'

They were in no way, shape or form asked if they believe these things are true. They were asked specific questions as to which candidate did X, and were given a 'Not Sure' and 'None' option on each question.

Asking the question "do you believe Sarah Palin said 'I can see Russia from my house'" is a COMPLETELY different question than "Which candidate said I can see Russia from my house?"

The only correct answer there is 'None.'

But 87% of people associated it with Sarah Palin.

Asking if people believed that it was true would automatically force them to consider the concept that it wasn't true, and I'm sure a much lower percentage of them would respond that Sarah Palin said that in that context then would respond that way in this context.

By the same token, the only "correct" answer on the "Which candidate got their start in the home of two members of the Weather Underground" is none, because that wasn't the first Obama event.

The only "correct" answer to "Which candidate won their first election by kicking all opponents off the ballot" is also "None," since Obama presumably faced at least nominal Republican opposition after being successful in his legal challenge to one or more primary oppponents' petitions.

And so forth.

Nor would that be the correct answer even if that were the first event for Obama. Nor would it be correct English in any event. "Got his start" refers not to the first event of one's first campaign, but to the first big break or big decision leading to a political career.

And, of course, there's no reason to believe that that's the singular event that won Obama the primary election; Obama was a very strong candidate who probably would have won anyway without a successful challenge of one primary candidate's petitions. Not to mention that the story got no play in the real media because challenging petition signatures is an utterly ordinary part of political campaigns that every single person who runs for office does. Every candidate always checks the number of signatures gathered by his opponents, and if that number is low enough that a challenge might be successful, a challenge happens.

Link? I've seen several sources that state that the first fundraiser for Barak Obama were he was introduced as a candidate for the 13th Illinois Senate district was at Ayers house.

Nope.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/elections/state/IL/candidates/
Under the entry for Barack Obama:
He was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996. He faced no Republican opposition.

So it appears that it is true that he sued all of his opponents off the ticket in the 1996 election.

No. My next line simply makes allowance that someone like Pardot might delude himself into thinking these were not facts because of some irrelevant parsing.

For what?

The OP is pretty clear - they were asked about it, most didn't know. Seems pretty obvious.

It depends on how one defines "start." Even assuming for the sake of argument the first ever fundraiser Obama did was in the Ayers home, that still is not where the idea for the campaign got its inception.

Incidentally, it wasn't a "fundraiser." It was a meet the candidate coffee, and as Ayers described it, it was one of numerous ones Obama had held at the same time.

Here's a link showing that it wasn't a fundraiser.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8630.html

The Washington Times appears to be wrong.

Here's from Lexis-Nexis a copy of the Tribune's endorsements:

Here's wikipedia:

In other words, the Washington Times was wrong.

For the claim that the poll asked them whether they had heard the story, rather than whether it was true.

If you and I were both asked: "Which American President deliberately deceived American citizens with false information about Iraqi WMDs? Clinton, Bush, Obama, Lincon, None, Not sure?" -- you would answer "None" or "Not sure", while I would answer "Bush". That doesn't mean you *know* less about the story or are unable to correctly assign it to the right President. But a Zogby poll as biased against Bush as this one was against Obama would count you among those who had never heard of Iraq's WMDs, or any doubts to their existence.

Quibbling. The article you linked was one that I had read before. The first paragraph:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8630.html

Being introduced to the public as the successor of the state senator could certainly reasonably be construed as the place where his campaign started. It was his first appearance as a candidate for office.

Fair enough. He only used technical grounds to eliminate his democratic primary opponents, including his mentor who was the incumbent who had 82% of the vote in the previous election.