How Obama Got Elected

I have to admit I was surprised – but only a little. I’ve heard “man on the street” interviews where people are completely ignorant of key political figures. But what struck me about this clip is the lopsidedness in what they’ve heard about the candidates.

You can read a short abstract about an upcoming documentary here but this is the gist:

On Election Day, 12 Obama supporters were interviewed and asked questions straight from a recent Zogby poll. Here are some results from the original poll:

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).

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)

You can see for yourselves how the Obama supporters answered. As I’ve already said, the information these people have heard is obviously skewed to support Obama. In this clip, all of the interviewees knew that Sarah Palin has a pregnant teenage daughter and that the RNC spent $150K on her wardrobe. None of them knew who Bill Ayers was.

It would be funny if it weren’t so downright scary!