A couple of weeks ago a man named John Ziegler commissioned a Zogby poll of Obama voters which revealed that many of them didn't have a clue about who Barack Obama was or what the political facts of life in this country are. Ziegler took some heat for this poll because it focused only on Democrats, but the criticism was somewhat unfair because it misconstrued his intent. He wasn't trying to show that Obama voters were particularly dumb, as some of his critics alleged, but rather that much of the American media, particularly the liberal outlets, have failed their audience. People who relied on the liberal media, which most Obama voters did, were obviously and grossly underinformed or misinformed.
Having been criticized for focusing on Obama voters in the original poll, Ziegler recently commissioned Wilson Research Strategies to conduct a poll of McCain voters who were asked the same twelve questions as Zogby had put to his sample, and the difference in the results is stark. The GOP voters scored much higher than did the Democrats. Zeigler is adamant that the disparity has nothing to do with one group being smarter than the other but has everything to do with where the respective groups get their information.
Voters who watch Fox news and listen to talk radio scored much better than those who watch CNN and/or network news. McCain voters largely belonged to the former group and Obama voters largely belonged to the latter. Ziegler talks about his results here and the complete results can be found at his web site (you may have to scroll down to find the most recent poll results). Here's a quick sample:
35 % of McCain voters got 10 or more of 13 questions correct.
18% of Obama voters got 10 or more of 13 questions correct.
McCain voters knew which party controls congress by a 63-27 margin.
Obama voters got the "congressional control" question wrong by 43-41.
The most amazing result Ziegler's study turned up was that those who get their news from liberal outlets were stunningly uninformed about most of the questions asked about Obama and American politics, but they scored very high on questions about Sarah Palin.
Only 13.7% failed to identify Sarah Palin as the person upon whom their party spent $150,000 in clothes. Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the candidate with a pregnant teenage daughter, and 86.9 % thought Palin said that she could see Russia from her "house," even though it was Tina Fey who said that on Saturday Night Live.
Check out the results. It'll make you wonder how well democracy in America is being served by a large segment of our media, particularly television networks.
RLC