How Obama got elected
This is a great video from John Ziegler showing how the media was able to influence voting in the 2008 presidential election:
Some findings from a Zogby poll that coincides with Ziegler’s video:
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)
71.8% 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).
And yet…..
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)
It sounds a little too African for me. And as an average American who knows a lot about the African American community and works/associates with African Americans, has black friends and likes hip hop too, perhaps a hip hop tune would have been better. Something like:
Obama
Obama
He’s gonna hep yo Mama
and yo daddy
and yo baby
and yo baby mama.
FYI
Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight interviewed John Ziegler, who commissioned a Zogby poll purporting to prove that Obama voters are uninformed. Things started off testy:
NS: What was the right answer to that [Palin] question?
JZ: The technically accurate question [sic] is that none of the four people said that, but we counted it as correct if they said Sarah Palin.
NS: Why would you commission a survey question with no correct response?
JZ: The purpose of the question, you pinhead, was we wanted to determine the Tina Fey Effect.
And it only got worse, ending with Ziegler telling Silver to “go fuck yourself.”
NS: Would you consider yourself well-informed?
JZ: I’d consider myself extremely well-informed.
NS: Who are the two senators from South Dakota
JZ: Thune and, uh, Johnson.
NS: Very good. South Carolina?
JZ: Go fxxck yourself. I’m done with this interview if you’re going to ask me stupid questions like that. Obviously I know who Lindsay Graham is.
NS: Well, since you’re running a website calling people misinformed, I’d like to see if — there are certain things you’ve said that I would consider misinformed.
JZ: Misinformed? You’re a piece of work! You are never going to have the guts to post a representative transcript on your website! I thought you actually ran a legitimate website!
NS: Thank you, have a good day.
JZ: Go fxxck yourself.
John…go f#@k yourself!
John,
Do you see the point that the media had so much influence on voters? Everybody knows about the clothes, but nobody knows about Obama’s election record or Biden’s plagarism.
Just goes to show how really dumb voters are in America. They get their news from The View, Oprah and Jon Stewart. The country will suffer due to these people electing equally dumb people like Maxine Waters, Sheila Jackson Lee, William Jefferson, Dennis Kucinich, Ted Stevens, Saxby Chambliss and all the rest of the go along to get along myrmidons in DC.
I don’t KNOW what their politics are on the Daily show. But it’s been fun and easy finding comedians that criticize Bush for the last few years. As far as comment #1 goes I’m surprised David O’Rear hasn’t commented. Personally I know some “brothers” who would laugh hysterically at that.
bb,
We’ve already suffered 8 years under a moron. These same people who thought Bush was so wonderful voted for Obama too. Take your medicine and be done with it.
It certainly is shocking to hear the voters are uninformed.
Of course, no one is more uninformed than FOX News viewers.
http://people-press.org/report/319/public-knowledge-of-current-affairs-little-changed-by-news-and-information-revolutions
BTW, those statements about Obama are all false, and therefore it’s impossible to answer them correctly.
The “kicked off ballot” is false because a candidate can’t kick any other candidate off the ballot. His opponents failed to gather enough signitures and the Illinois Secretary of State kicked them off the ballot.
The “bankrupt coal industry” comment was in reference to new dirty coal plants, not clean coal plants. McCain’s position was exactly the same. Obama’s proposal wouldn’t bankrupt anybody because nobody would propose building more dirty coal plants.
And the “launching campaign” comment is just false because while Obama did attend a fundraiser hosted by Ayers, it was neither his first campaign meeting nor first fundraiser, though it was early in his campaign.
So what the poll respondents were unfamiliar with were false GOP talking points, not facts. So technically, they didn’t get those questions wrong.
Blah blah blah blah blah…at least we could complain that in 2004 and 2000 the elections were stolen…
Lefthook,
He challenged the opponents in court and had them kicked off the ballot. They would have been on the ballot had he not gone through with that. He doesn’t like competition. I find it ironic since he had ACORN registering all those voters illegally for him.
Obama doesn’t support clean coal. Look at his voting record. He voted for the Cheney energy bill.
You act like the fundraiser held by Ayers was for somebody else. Ayers held a fundraiser FOR Obama.
Don’t worry, Bill, I’m hear. 7:30am my time, so give me a little slack.
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“his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket ”
WHAT? That question is to honest opinion polls what “Have you stopped beating your wife?” is to yes/no questions.
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caroline,
Before making comments about who did / didn’t vote for which candidate, do some research. The answer turns out to be very different from your opinion.
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BTW, those statements about Obama are all false, and therefore it’s impossible to answer them correctly.
THANK YOU, LeftHook!
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Here’s my poll for ya’ll:
What percentage of out-going senators and representatives have valid passports?
* It isn’t a trick question.
* You get 10% leeway.
Go at it, kids!
here
I think the argument that bb is making is that Americans are stupid and can’t be trusted to choose a leader.
Any arguments?
no
Now here’s a pretty good tune from a few months ago. I don’t think it got approval from the Obama strategists. But maybe it helped with his surge. That whole Obama chant thing is pretty lame IMHO.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmDjADCKDpM
Obama’s Use of Complete Sentences Stirs Controversy
In the first two weeks since the election, President-elect Barack Obama has broken with a tradition established over the past eight years through his controversial use of complete sentences, political observers say.
Millions of Americans who watched Mr. Obama’s appearance on CBS’s 60 Minutes on Sunday witnessed the president-elect’s unorthodox verbal tick, which had Mr. Obama employing grammatically correct sentences virtually every time he opened his mouth.
But Mr. Obama’s decision to use complete sentences in his public pronouncements carries with it certain risks, since after the last eight years many Americans may find his odd speaking style jarring.
According to presidential historian Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota, some Americans might find it “alienating” to have a president who speaks English as if it were his first language.
“Every time Obama opens his mouth, his subjects and verbs are in agreement,” says Mr. Logsdon. “If he keeps it up, he is running the risk of sounding like an elitist.”
The historian said that if Mr. Obama insists on using complete sentences in his speeches, the public may find itself saying, “Okay, subject, predicate, subject predicate — we get it, stop showing off.”
The president-elect’s stubborn insistence on using complete sentences has already attracted a rebuke from one of his harshest critics, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.
“Talking with complete sentences there and also too talking in a way that ordinary Americans like Joe the Plumber and Tito the Builder can’t really do there, I think needing to do that isn’t tapping into what Americans are needing also,” she said.
Andy Borowitz is a comedian and writer whose work appears in The New Yorker and The New York Times, and at his award-winning humor site, BorowitzReport.com.
caroline, Even though you & I probably don’t agree on most of the issues, I have to hand it to you for your moral consistency and recognizing the lack of integrity exhibited by the Obama campaign. I perceive you are just as frustrated as I am that our government is corrupt on both sides. Kudos to you for standing for better government (even if you want it to be more liberal government) and taking the time to get behind the narrative of MSM.
RE: No. 11 quiz above —-
40% of the US Congress and Senate do not have a passport.