On November 4th, 2008 millions of Americans were shocked that a man of Barack Obama's limited experience, extreme liberal positions and radical political alliances could be elected President of the United States. For many of these Americans, the explanation was rather simple... the news media, completely enamored with Obama, simply refused to do their job.
On Election day, twelve Obama voters were interviewed extensively right after they voted to learn how the news media impacted their knowledge of what occurred during the campaign. These voters were chosen for their apparent intelligence/verbal abilities and willingness to express their opinions to a large audience. The rather shocking video below seeks to provide some insight into which information broke through the news media clutter and which did not.
Because obviously interviewing a relative handful of Obama voters, while interesting, is hardly scientific proof of anything, we also commissioned a Zogby telephone poll which asked the very same questions (as well as a few others) with similarly amazing results.
- 512 Obama Voters 11/13/08-11/15/08 MOE +/- 4.4 points
- 97.1% High School Graduate or higher, 55% College Graduates
- Results to 12 simple Multiple Choice Questions
- 57.4% could not correctly say which party controls Congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)
- 81.8% could not correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing)
- 82.6% could not correctly say that Barack Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)
- 88.4% could not correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)
- 56.1% could not correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).
- Only 13.7% failed to identify Sarah Palin as the person on which their party spent $150,000 in clothes
- Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter
- And 86.9 % thought that Palin said that she could see Russia from her "house," even though that was Tina Fey who said that!
- Only 2.4% got at least 11 correct.
- Only .5% got all of them correct. (And we "gave" one answer that was technically not Palin, but actually Tina Fey)
Source: HowObamaGotElected.com
5 comments for this post
an interesting video, but definitely along the lines of sour grapes. i mean, the site was registered with godaddy on june 11, 2008. why would you have the idea to put up a site mocking the election of a president 4 months before the election? couldn't his energy have been spent better in other endeavors? perhaps educating voters?
how come in stating the facts of what people got correct we don't see what the percentage chance by guessing was? i'm sure it's the same 25% but it's odd they didn't make it a point to say so.
and where are the interviews with 12 "random" mccain supporters? and the results of a poll with hundreds more?
i bet anything the numbers come out the same.
good find though, thanks for sharin...
Nah, that's not sour grapes.
Yelling, "Bush isn't my president!" and threatening to move out of the country for eight years -- now, that was sour grapes.
The Natural State Hawg
Right up until the day of the election, I knew individuals who had no idea which party was in control of Congress for the last 2 years. I know they did not ask the question, but I can guarantee, few, if any, could tell (on a middle school level) the 3 branches of government and what they do. I'm sure random Republican voters wouldn't score that much better, though.
I believe it is more of a testament of how the mainstream media didn't do their due diligence on Obama, the Democrats behind Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and others.
The media went after Palin, for sure. If only they had done the same with Obama.
So many people are entirely too busy these days. They get their news and are educated about politics in bits and pieces. If the media cannot be trusted, then how are many of the voters to be trusted when it comes to being educated about the issues and voting accordingly?
going back to the site i see he was on hannity and colmes (and was shocked to see they let colmes talk!). that guy is beyond full of it. i love how he immediately turned it to race despite the fact half of his subjects were white and then pointed out a black woman picked the subjects. was it not racist by letting a black person pick interviewees?
i agree completely the press decided they liked obama better. the press for the most part always likes the democratic candidate better. they didn't do their "due diligence" on john kerry either and we as a country knew he was an unelectable douche.
why did obama get elected? same reason bill clinton did. he's a cult of personality. he's a rockstar. when he talks people want to listen. granted, a certain group of people are convinced he will be their personal savior. and let's not forget the republicans essentially punted.
if this john ziegler wants to become the michael moore of the right, more power to him. he's delusional for saying the poll/documentary wouldn't have come out the same way with mcccain supporters though.
i look cautiously forward to the next 4 years only because i was unhappy with the last 8. i know though that A LOT of people who envision some sort of utopia will be utterly destroyed and a lot of the people who envision the opposite will be pleasantly surprised.
and hawg...the country wouldn't have missed any of the silly celebs who played the "i'm leaving the country" bit. bush absolutely should have signed an executive order to have them moved to canada like they so dramatically wanted.