Wanna hear something REALLY scary?

News item:

Zogby Poll: Almost No Obama Voters Ace Election Test

Released: November 18, 2008

UTICA, New York — 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 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.

The survey was commissioned by John Ziegler, author of The Death of Free Speech, producer of the recently released film “Blocking the Path to 9/11” and producer of the upcoming documentary film, Media Malpractice…How Obama Got Elected.

 

“After I interviewed Obama voters on Election Day for my documentary, I had a pretty low opinion of what most of them had picked up from the media coverage of the campaign, but this poll really proves beyond any doubt the stunning level of malpractice on the part of the media in not educating the Obama portion of the voting populace,” said Ziegler.

 

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.

 

In addition to questions regarding statements and scandals associated with the campaigns, the 12-question, multiple-choice survey also included a question asking which political party controlled both houses of Congress leading up to the election — 57% of Obama voters were unable to correctly answer that Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate.

 

Let’s pause for a nanosecond, and soak that data up.

Done? Good. Now let’s talk. 

Overall, I think Americans do not appreciate how precious the right to vote really is. They prove that, every election, by the fact that a vast majority of voters (forget those that can’t even be bothered to vote) know nothing about the candidates. In fact, most voters simply parrot back what they hear on TV. That’s bad. But when we have a mainstream media that was overwhelmingly in the tank for Obama, the result is a voting populace that willingly lapped up the bias that was spoon-fed to them by the media. 

Think about it. The Democrats have been in charge of both the House and the Senate for the past two years. The approval rating for Congress is lower than that of President Bush – and is, in fact, hovering around single digits. Yet, the Democrats increased their hold on both houses in the most recent election. Now we know why…a majority of the Obama voters in this survey didn’t know that the Democrats were already in charge. 

Does this scare you? It scares me. A bunch. 

Back in the bad old days, America had laws (since repealed) that prevented Americans from exercising their right to vote. I am not advocating a return to those days, period. However, I’m not sure that we wouldn’t be better off if voters had to get at least a passing score on a political quiz, in order to cast a vote. Let’s see how you’d do on the following quiz:

1. Name the current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
2. Who is the current Speaker of the House?
3. Who is the Majority Leader in the Senate?
4. Which party currently controls the House?
5. Which party currently controls the Senate?
6. Who is third in the line of succession for the Presidency?
7. What office is the most senior in the Cabinet?
8. Name the three branches of the Federal Government.
9. What document begins with the words “We the People”?
10. What are the first ten amendments to the Constitution commonly called?