Zogby Poll: Obama Supporters Didn't Know Their Candidate

This poll has been the subject of a great deal of controversy, not for what it contains, but more for the fact that it was actually conducted.

According to Zogby:

Just 2% of voters who supported Barack Obama on Election Day obtained perfect or near-perfect scores on a post election test which gauged their knowledge of statements and scandals associated with the presidential tickets during the campaign, a new Zogby International telephone poll shows.

When the controversy broke, Zogby stood by the results:

Zogby Statement On Ziegler Poll

More on the poll and its results:

Only 54% of Obama voters were able to answer at least half or more of the questions correctly. The 12-question, multiple-choice survey found questions regarding statements linked to Republican presidential candidate John McCain and his vice-presidential running-mate Sarah Palin were far more likely to be answered correctly by Obama voters than questions about statements associated with Obama and Vice-President–Elect Joe Biden. The telephone survey of 512 Obama voters nationwide was conducted Nov. 13-15, 2008, and carries a margin of error of +/- 4.4 percentage points.

It seems those who took the poll knew more about the McCain/Palin ticket than they knew about their own ticket:

Ninety-four percent of Obama voters correctly identified Palin as the candidate with a pregnant teenage daughter, 86% correctly identified Palin as the candidate associated with a $150,000 wardrobe purchased by her political party, and 81% chose McCain as the candidate who was unable to identify the number of houses he owned. When asked which candidate said they could "see Russia from their house," 87% chose Palin, although the quote actually is attributed to Saturday Night Live's Tina Fey during her portrayal of Palin during the campaign. An answer of "none" or "Palin" was counted as a correct answer on the test, given that the statement was associated with a characterization of Palin. Obama voters did not fare nearly as well overall when asked to answer questions about statements or stories associated with Obama or Biden -- 83% failed to correctly answer that Obama had won his first election by getting all of his opponents removed from the ballot, and 88% did not correctly associate Obama with his statement that his energy policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry. Most (56%) were also not able to correctly answer that Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground. Nearly three quarters (72%) of Obama voters did not correctly identify Biden as the candidate who had to quit a previous campaign for President because he was found to have plagiarized a speech, and nearly half (47%) did not know that Biden was the one who predicted Obama would be tested by a generated international crisis during his first six months as President.

Should this concern us? Absolutely. It shows how an uninformed American electorate can be manipulated.

It also shows how the MSM did the entire nation a huge disservice by not vetting Barack Obama and wasting so much time trying to dig up useless dirt on Sarah Palin.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Zogby Poll: Almost No Obama Voters Ace Election Test
Zogby International
November 18, 2008

To view the survey results:

Survey Results

The Ire Over Illegal Immigration

We all know about it. We all know its happening. We all know what needs to be done. Yet, many politicians still don't get it. Maybe that's because those politicians don't have to deal with it up close and personal like the people of Orange County, California. No, this isn't like the reality TV series or the drama of O.C. This is the real Orange County.

From the San Jose Mercury News:

At Chapman Avenue and Hewes Street, dozens of day laborers - many of whom are illegal immigrants - have been swarming mothers driving SUVs as they pull in to buy groceries, fed-up locals complain. Women say they are nervous to drop off laundry at the dry cleaners next door and men heading into the Ace Hardware are reluctant to leave their tools in the back of their pickup trucks. ... The Field Poll of California voters last week showed McCain and Romney in a statistical dead heat. But more recent polls, taken before the Florida primary, show McCain taking a stronger lead. For Romney, Phyllis Beilharz might be an ideal voter. The day laborer issue in the Albertsons parking lot has her steaming mad. "It's a nuisance. It's uncomfortable. They stand close to your car. Sometimes you're scared," said Beilharz, 70. "I hope they send them all back. The ones who are citizens can stay, the ones who work hard." ... [Orange Mayor Carolyn Cavecche] put a police officer on patrol full time to go to where day laborers gather and hired more code enforcers for the illegal boarding houses that rent space to more than a dozen men at a time. After the past month of extra enforcement and new regulations, the Albertsons parking lot has mostly cleared out, but dozens still hang out at Friendly Donuts. "For me, it's like squeezing Jello. You know, what I did just put them in someone else's town," Cavecche said. "I'm going to take care of my city. It's what I was elected to do." Now, she said, if only a new president would do the same.

If only. Maybe if the President had to look at people like this on a daily basis:



He might have a different platform.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Presidential Election: Among GOP Voters, Ire Over Illegal Immigration
Julia Prodis Sulek
Mercury News
January 30, 2008

Irregularities In Florida Primary And Congress Gets A Raise

Flip Pidot has something interesting today. He notes that although Florida was supposed to be a closed primary, exit polls showed that it was not quite as closed as it should have been. From his blog entry:

In my attempts to self-soothe in the wake of Romney's Florida defeat, I'm poring over the details of the exit polling in search of encouraging morsels, thus far with sporadic success. Mitt beat McCain soundly among conservatives (37-29), among "issues" voters (35-27), and even edged him out among voters for whom terrorism was the most important issue (29-26). One breakout that puzzles me though is the vote share by party identification. Romney and McCain were tied among Republicans at 33-33, while McCain won independents 44-23.

Now, if I understand Florida law correctly, the only people who should have been voting in the Republican Primary were Republicans or those who changed their party affiliation to Republican in the last 30 days.

So why this:



Self-identified Independents voted in a supposedly closed Republican Primary? Note the 44% that McCain got from these people.

Flip goes on:

Despite my support for Romney, I'm loathe to hunt for extra innings in this or any contest. That's a game usually better left to the Gores, Kuciniches, Paulnuts, and the other dark-minded conspiracy buffs of the world. And to be clear, I'm not suggesting conspiracy is afoot, only that Florida's record of electoral execution is... well, checkered. At the risk of being lumped into the ranks of the aforementioned, and given that the impact of participation by non-Republicans in this primary appears to account for the entirety of McCain's margin of victory, I'm tempted to swallow my loathing and press for some answers as to what might have happened. Exit polls rely on the accuracy of the verbal responses given by the pollees and therefore aren't definitively dispositive of anything at all. But 17% of 1,500 respondents self-identifying as independents who voted Republican means something irregular took place, unless hundreds of voters chose to tell pollsters a similar lie.

We need answers for this. Florida seems to have a great deal of trouble voting these days. Perhaps it is not the system that is broken so much as it is the people who run the system.

You can access the complete blog-entry on-line here:

Was Florida A Closed Primary Or Not?
Flip Pidot
SuitablyFlip.com
January 30, 2008

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And Congress got another pay raise on New Years Day this year. Jeff Jacoby has this to say in the Boston Globe:

While the median income of US families has increased by around $11,000 since 1998, the income of their representatives in Washington has increased by more than $30,000. Considering that the latter work for the former, the imbalance between them is striking. It is also unconstitutional. Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution authorizes Congress to pay itself with public funds, but the 27th Amendment circumscribes that authority. It provides: "No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect until an election of Representatives shall have intervened." The amendment limits the power of Congress to change its salary by preventing any pay raise from taking effect until the voters have had their say. Members of the House and Senate are free to alter the next Congress's salary, but they are prohibited from enlarging their own.

Go figure.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

Congress Helps Itself, Again
Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
January 30, 2008

Some Global Warming Skeptic Papers And Ann Coulter Looks At John McCain

Here are some good research papers regarding Global Warming and the (lack of) evidence thereof. For example, this first paper by Dr. John R. Christy looks at the economic impacts we would be risking in relation to conflicting data.

Dr. Christy notes that "We know, for example, because of continuous and accurate satellite monitoring since 1979, that in 2007 the Arctic sea ice area retreated to a record minimum, and curiously, that the Antarctic sea ice area expanded to a record maximum."

That's pretty conflicting. You can read the full 10 page paper on-line here:

Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee
John R. Christy
University of Alabama in Huntsville
November, 14 2007

Next is a paper from the Civil Society Coalition On Climate Change. This paper basically says that governments should reject calls for a post-Kyoto treaty (“Kyoto 2”) with binding limits on carbon emissions. The report says a better strategy would be to focus on removing barriers to adaptation, such as subsidies, taxes and regulations that hinder technological innovation and economic growth.

Civil Society Report On Climate Change
Civil Society Coalition
November 27, 2007

Then we have a letter to the U.N. signed by over 100 scientists stating that trying to influence climate change is futile and should not be undertaken. In this letter we learn that IPCC cherry picked the data rather than considering all of it together.

100 Scientists To The UN: Attempts To Control The Climate Are Futile
Various Scientists
December 13, 2007

And finally we have a nice little piece about Antarctic temperatures in which we learn that average the temperature at or near the south pole has been stable since 1970.



You can access this article on-line here:

Antarctic Temperatures: 1958-2002
Chapman, W.L. and Walsh, J.E.
December 19, 2007

Too bad Al Gore isn't a true scientist. He might find all of this data and these findings fascinating.

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I've been following the Primary Elections with some interest, provided no one tries to promote anyone's viewpoint to the exclusion of others' viewpoints. I find such tactics boorish and tiresome. Instead, I like to make comparisons and see what the key differences are.

Sometimes, you have to look at a candidate all by himself and make comparisons over time. You'll be surprised at some of the stuff you find. Ann Coulter did just that when she looked at John McCain's campaign. Here is a little of what she found:

John McCain is Bob Dole minus the charm, conservatism and youth. Like McCain, pollsters assured us that Dole was the most "electable" Republican. Unlike McCain, Dole didn't lie all the time while claiming to engage in Straight Talk. Of course, I might lie constantly too, if I were seeking the Republican presidential nomination after enthusiastically promoting amnesty for illegal aliens, Social Security credit for illegal aliens, criminal trials for terrorists, stem-cell research on human embryos, crackpot global warming legislation and free speech-crushing campaign-finance laws. I might lie too, if I had opposed the Bush tax cuts, a marriage amendment to the Constitution, waterboarding terrorists and drilling in Alaska. And I might lie if I had called the ads of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth "dishonest and dishonorable."

And his stance on amnesty for illegals is really going to hurt him:

McCain angrily denounces the suggestion that his "comprehensive immigration reform" constituted "amnesty" -- on the ludicrous grounds that it included a small fine. Even the guy who graduated fifth from the bottom of his class at the U.S. Naval Academy didn't fall for this a few years ago. In 2003, McCain told The Tucson Citizen that "amnesty has to be an important part" of any immigration reform. He also rolled out the old chestnut about America's need for illegals, who do "jobs that American workers simply won't do." McCain's amnesty bill would have immediately granted millions of newly legalized immigrants Social Security benefits. He even supported allowing work performed as an illegal to count toward Social Security benefits as recently as a vote in 2006 -- now adamantly denied by Mr. Straight Talk.

If John McCain does somehow get the GOP nod, I'm probably going to go ahead and vote for the Dem candidate. Why? Because out of the entire field of both Dem and GOP candidates, any of the Dems would be a disaster, but McCain is the only GOP candidate guaranteed to be a disaster. Given that choice, I'd fix it so the Dems take the blame.

You can access Ann's complete column on-line here:

'Straight Talk' Express Takes Scenic Route To Truth
Ann Coulter
Human Events Online
January 23, 2008