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

Rupert Murdoch To The Mass Media: “You Dug Yourself A Huge Hole”

In recent years, newspapers all across the United States have seen their circulation numbers fall sharply and the value of their stocks decline at least as much. Magazines are hurting too as evidenced by Time which has asked for 82 volunteers to take a contract buyout in order to reduce the magazine’s payroll expenditure.

We bloggers have known for a few years now why this has been happening. And now, Rupert Murdoch has said it publically to his peers.

Charles Cooper at CNET, reporting on a lecture series sponsored by the Australian Broadcast Corporation, quotes Murdoch:

“The complacency stems from having enjoyed a monopoly–and now finding they have to compete for an audience they once took for granted. The condescension that many show their readers is an even bigger problem. It takes no special genius to point out that if you are contemptuous of your customers, you are going to have a hard time getting them to buy your product. Newspapers are no exception.” The 77-year-old Murdoch, recalling a long career in newspapers that began when his father’s death forced him to take over the Adelaide News in 1952, said the profession has failed to creatively respond to changes wrought by technology. “It used to be that a handful of editors could decide what was news–and what was not. They acted as sort of demigods. If they ran a story, it became news. If they ignored an event, it never happened,” Murdoch said. “Today, editors are losing this power. The Internet, for example, provides access to thousands of new sources that cover things an editor might ignore. And if you aren’t satisfied with that, you can start up your own blog, and cover and comment on the news yourself. Journalists like to think of themselves as watchdogs, but they haven’t always responded well when the public calls them to account.”

And to drive the point home, Murdoch points to the first major victory we bloggers had over the MSM:

To make his point, Murdoch criticized the media reaction after bloggers debunked a 60 Minutes report by former CBS anchor Dan Rather that President Bush had evaded service during his days in the National Guard. “Far from celebrating this citizen journalism, the establishment media reacted defensively,” Murdoch said. “During an appearance on Fox News, a CBS executive attacked the bloggers in a statement that will go down in the annals of arrogance. 60 Minutes, he said, was a professional organization with ‘multiple layers of checks and balances.’ By contrast, he dismissed the blogger as ‘a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing.’ Eventually, it was the guys sitting in their pajamas who forced Rather and his producer to resign.”

Remember that not one single major news outlet ever called Dan Ra^ther to task for his attempted deception. It was only after the story had been broken and uncovered by the blogosphere that any of the MSM even bothered to mention it.

And one very telling fact shows why we bloggers have been gaining in popularity and readership:

Murdoch continued: “Mr. Rather and his defenders are not alone. A recent American study reported that many editors and reporters simply do not trust their readers to make good decisions. Let’s be clear about what this means. This is a polite way of saying that these editors and reporters think their readers are too stupid to think for themselves.”

Excellent article.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Murdoch To Media: You Dug Yourself A Huge Hole
Charles Cooper
CNET
November 16, 2008