[Proof] Plurality of Republicans are idiots

Concur.

 

read the first line of this thread.

http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=181441

 

im not even a democrat, but i would say that the vast majority would have answered no to all of those in 2004. and answered no to all but the last question in 2008.

we really didnt see democrats or 'liberals' on a whole embracing 'conspiracy theories' to the degree that republicans have. in fact, i would say that mainstream democrats on here were just as quick to shoot down 9/11 conspiracy theories, for example, as republicans were. on that level i give them credit for their consistency. as for many republicans, given the disregard they had for conspiracy theories regarding bush, its surprising that they are so willing to embrace the ones regarding obama.

 

And? It doesn't matter who or what party conducts the poll. It doesn't change the reality that a balanced budget is going to happen anytime soon, regardless if you raise taxes.

 

Fine, you've said it, but that doesn't make it true. You haven't said why. Why is it a fraud? Because polls, by there very nature, are fraudulent? Because of the pollster? Because of the sample size? Explain to me why it's a fraud. Or is it because you don't like the results?

I'm sorry, but this is not true. Left-wingers are not the ones holding up signs, screaming at congressmen and women at tea-parties, going on Faux News and declaring these things. These are opinions being circulated by the right.

So, to be clear:

- You DON'T think Obama should be impeached.

- You DO think Obama is a socialist (per your quote that you "broadly agree that Obama appears to be some sort of a socialist.")

- You DO think Obama was born in the USA.

- You DON'T think Obama hates white people.

So despite what he says, he's a "socialist". So, that means it must be his thoughts (which, of course, NONE of us are privy to, so we must rule them out), or his actions. What actions, specifically, would you call "socialist"?

 

Probably:
(1) Advocating Bob Dole style health reform measures
(2) Suggesting that the wealthiest Americans should return to Reagan-era tax policies, which are still much more lenient than, say, Eisenhower tax policies (want to talk about a socialist!)

 

Regardless of whether you are correct or not, it should be obvious that your words and your tone lead to less discourse, not more. Do you disagree?

And this is true even if the fault lies with the people who focus on your behavior rather than the substance of the topic. It probably would have been more true to my intent if my comment had referred to, "the results of Batman's antics" rather than "Batman's antics". I wasn't assigning fault, but pointing out the reality that the fallout from your posting obscured the information provided by the poll.

And I believe you're aware of this, and just don't mind. That would be fine, but it wouldn't make the reality any less true or noteworthy.

Maybe nuance is appropriate for the socialist question, but what nuance do you need when asking if Obama is a citizen, or whether he wants terrorists to win?

 

Unless you have spoken to "most Democrats," you don't really know this to be true.

Similarly, there is no hope for honest discourse when one side believes (wrongly) that they deal in only truth and their opponents deal in only lies. History has shown that this does not produce good results for anybody.

Frankly, the poll you posted proves nothing. There is no information regarding error margin, how many people were polled and how they defined "Republican." Is it just card carrying party members or people who voted for McCain, etc?

For all I know they polled 47 people in a cult compound in Utah and another 47 in a cult compound in Georgia and called it "nationwide."

There is no information with that poll that even begins to give any confidence that it has any scientific polling integrity.

Yes. If he weren't, we would have known before the election.

Yes and no. I feel that there is a large continuum. He falls farther toward socialism on that continuum than I do, but I would not consider him to be a complete socialist.

I honestly have no basis on which to opine. I have never met him.

No. He has VERY different ideas on how we can win than a lot of people. That being the case, human nature is to assume the worst of motives. I do not believe that he wants the terrorists to win.

If you think that the Republicans have a monopoly on crazy candidates, we will respectfully differ on this point. They are all bat **** crazy. That is why they are in politics.

Governor Goodhair (aka an Aggie gone terribly wrong) will not get my vote. I wanted to vote for Kinky (again), but he is not running. I will likely vote for Bill White.

Reposted for truth and wisdom.

 

None of this is true. As with any scientifically credible poll, all of the basic methodology information is made public by the people conducting the poll.

http://www.dailykos.com/statepoll/2010/1/31/US/437


Methodology
DKOS REPUBLICAN POLL 2010

The Daily Kos Republican Poll was conducted by Research 2000 from January 20 through January 31, 2010. A total of 2003 self identified Republicans were interviewed nationally by telephone. Those interviewed were selected by the random variation of the last four digits of telephone numbers, nationally.

The margin for error, according to standards customarily used by statisticians, is no more than plus or minus 2% percentage points. This means that there is a 95 percent probability that the "true" figure would fall within that range if the entire self identified Republican population were sampled. The margin for error is higher for any demographic subgroup, such as for gender or region.

 

Is it any wonder republicans think the way they do when they have leaders like Michele Bachmann?

A fundraising email from her...

 

I stand corrected as to the matter of whether the data was presented. I simply did not see it in what was posted.

2,003 out of the entire nation is a remarkably small sample size.

I personally do not know any conservatives that would have answered the way this poll came out...then again, I don't know all conservatives across the nation either.

 

Let me get this straight, Republican senators who are want to break caucus on some issues but don't are afraid that the Party itself will back politicians who are like Bachmann during re-election?

 

It's actually quite large. That's how they derive the margin of error as described in the quoted text, and a 2% margin of error is pretty small.

Now, in some polls there are assumptions made, and so that 2% only holds if the assumptions are true. For example, polling potential election outcomes relies on the pollster guessing at who is likely to vote and who is not likely to vote. Rasmussen assumes more conservatives will be coming out to vote in the next few elections, so their numbers skew more towards conservative candidates and positions. Other polling companies might assume a group of likely voters that is similar to who voted in 2008. They would get numbers that lean a lot farther towards Obama's policies and people.

So in those types of situations, the margin of error means less, but in a survey like this I have a hard time figuring out what assumptions they were making that could skew the results. They picked self-identified Republicans by random telephone number draw. Unless there is some huge discrepancy with cell phones versus land lines, I imagine these results are pretty accurate. I seriously wouldn't spend much time thinking the results are flawed.

And to be honest, I really think that you could find something similar for self-identified Democrats, although probably not as glaring. The more people are willing to self-identify as a member of a party, the more likely they are to treat it like a team to root for no matter what, and possibly believe the ridiculous just to "win".

 

Well, I guess I'm using the term "similar" somewhat loosely, but still...

 

Fox will pull it off.

I have confidence in their skill set.

 

Until you actually conduct the poll with questions similarly devised to elicit a desired response...you can't really say that with any confidence.

 

You're right. You are clearly the only person buying Levi Johnson's story in one of your Trig Truther threads.

http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=176238&page=1&pp=20

 

Interesting companion piece to the DailyHOC...

http://johnziegler.com/editorials_details.asp?editorial=197

Sunday, February 7, 2010
Editorial by John Ziegler
Once Again, The Most Important Polls Are Ignored

2/2/2010

Back in late 2008, as part of my research for my documentary film “Media Malpractice, “ at great personal expense I commissioned two highly scientific polls of the electorate to determine how the dreadful media coverage of the campaign impacted what voters knew (or thought they knew) about the candidates.

The first, a Zogby poll of just Obama voters, created a huge, largely internet based, controversy, ending with John Zogby refusing to take my money to duplicate the poll with McCain voters added. The second, asking essentially the same multiple choice questions of all voters with similarly astonishing results, was basically ignored by the media.
.
So, when the highly respected Pew Research Center came out with their recent poll assessing the knowledge (or lack there of) base of the average voter I was intrigued on several levels.

First, I was struck by how incredibly similar the Pew poll (in both methodology and results) was to the ones I commissioned, which were viciously and wrongly attacked by the left as nothing but right-wing propaganda.

Both asked twelve, rather easy, multiple choice questions to gauge how much voters actually knew about current events. In both sets of polls the lack of knowledge was equally stunning and in both cases the most informed voters were White, Educated, Male, Republicans and the least informed were Minority, Undereducated, Female, Democrats. In both cases these potentially earth shattering results were treated by the news media like week-old NHL hockey scores. (Heck, Pew’s own laughably benign headline indicates they were afraid to publicize the results themselves!)

Before we get into an analysis of the significance of all of this, let’s first delve into the actual results which should stun and horrify almost everyone (at least those not already exposed to the polls for my documentary).

Here are some high (low) lights:

-- Only two percent got all twelve of the simple questions correct. Thirteen percent failed to get even two right answers (remember, if you simply guessed you should expect to get about three correct answers).
-- Given four multiple choice options, only 26% knew it takes 60 votes to break a filibuster in the Senate.
-- Just 48% of Republicans knew Harry Reid leads the Senate, while only 33% of Democrats did.
-- On no question did 60% of the respondents get the right answer.
-- Republicans got an average of 5.9 correct, while Democrats scored just 4.9. Even often maligned Independents did better than Democrats, averaging 5.6 correct answers.
-- On almost every question, men out did women, whites got more answers correct than blacks, the more educated did better than the less schooled, the richer did better than the poorer, the older outscored the younger, and Republicans did best while Democrats did worst.
-- Women did particularly poorly on the economic questions with a 21 point gender gap on an inquiry about the debt, 18 points on the Dow question, and 14 on the unemployment rate query.


It would seem to me that these results demand that we radically rework the “conventional wisdom” about virtually everything that the news media would have us believe about our electorate. I find it particularly ironic that polls which ask people what they “think” are routinely given far more attention than polls like this one which determine what potential voters really “know.” After all, in a remotely rational world, it would be rather difficult to justify caring about what people “think” if they don’t actually “know” anything. In short, the poltical opinions of the average American citizen have less substance than cotton candy.

But in 21st century America everyone’s opinion is equal regardless of what it is actually founded on. In fact, based on the media’s matrix (especially in Hollywood), often what the poor, the young, the less educated, the allegedly oppressed minority or female, and the openly liberal have to say is given greater value than the voice of the already over privileged old, rich, educated, white, male Republican. Who cares that they may actually know what the heck they are talking about; that simply doesn’t matter any more. Instead it is all about how you “feel” that we care about, not what you “know.”

The implications of this study obviously go far beyond exposing the inaccurate cultural perceptions created by political correctness. Clearly, we are simply not well informed enough to maintain the democratic republic that our founders created. In fact, it is not even close.

Politically, the evidence is overwhelming that elections are not remotely decided by issues or substance. Hollywood has long ago discovered just how unintelligent the average American really is and has done a suburb job of exploiting that reality. Politicians have been a little slower in coming to this realization but the remarkable success of an Obama campaign that pulled off an historic upset on little more than “Hope” and “Change,” certainly indicates that the “ignorance awareness” gap between D.C. and Los Angeles is quickly closing.

Taking this concept out of the theoretical and into the practical, I have written previously about how Scott Brown’s magnificent win is being overrated as an indication of a political shift in this country. How could his victory really be all about repudiating health care reform when only 32% of adults in this country know that no Republicans voted for it and only 39% know Harry Reid leads the Senate? This means that at least 61% of potential voters have absolutely no clue about what is really going on regarding the most publicized public policy issue of the past year!

More and more I am convinced that all that matters in elections is how you look/sound, what your personal narrative is, whether you are part of the party the public (often wrongly) thinks is in power, and how the media treats you. That is a recipe for both the destruction of the conservative movement as well as the nation itself.