A new Zogby poll has been released that pretty much explains the 2008 election. The poll finds that most Obama supporters knew little about the candidate that they so religiously supported. In fact, most Obama supporters know more about John McCain and Sarah Palin than they do about Barack Obama.
“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.” … “Only 54% of Obama voters were able to answer at least half or more of the questions correctly.”
The study narrows in on the “free pass” the media extended towards the Obama campaign, while extensively scrutinizing the McCain ticket; in particular Sarah Palin. The study forms the basis of the upcoming documentary “Media Malpractice… How Obama Got Elected“. The following sneak peek is quite an eyeopener. It amazes me how people can be such dedicated supporters of someone they know little about and a political party that they knew even less about. Many relied on the media to inform them and instead, they had the wool pulled over their eyes.
Tags: journalism, media, Obama, Politics
November 19th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
I am neither surprised or concerned. I would have argued that most Americans know less then they should about the people running the government and often know even less about how the government itself works.
I do not know all of the results found in this study but I did notice that it doesn’t make reference to the McCain voters. I believe the results wouldn’t be much better.
November 19th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
I think it would be interesting to see this same poll of McCain voters as well. I think you would see almost the same results. Voters in general knew little about Obama other than the much repeated “change” mantra. The media simply did not scrutinize him even though he has some fairly significant issues surrounding him that are worth taking a look at. However, every hiccup made on the Republican ticket was made into a media spectacle.
Everybody knows how much Sarah Palin’s wardrobe costs, but not a single reporter thought to ask Obama “what do you mean?” when he proposed creating a civilian national security force with the funding equal to that of the US military. Simply glossed over.
What makes this study so interesting is that it is focuses on people who support a particular candidate and how they reacted to media spin involving the two candidates.