19 Responses to “How Obama got elected”

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1. Buffoon Says:
   November 18th, 2008 at 7:35 pm

   I know at this stage of the game this shouldn’t shock us, but damnit it still does. And even more demoralizing is that these “voters” think they are acting in the nations interest….

   They know not what they do…..

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2. The Dan Miller Experience Says:
   November 18th, 2008 at 7:38 pm

   I watched this at work today and just started smacking myself in the head repeatedly hoping that i was just insane and i would knock something loose in my head that would make this make sense.

   what’s even better is the statistics of the phone poll the guy did.

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3. Vinny Says:
   November 18th, 2008 at 7:58 pm

   At least the Democrats didn’t pick anyone who was so poorly informed to be their candidate for vice-president.

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4. Joey Says:
   November 18th, 2008 at 8:20 pm

   That’s just plain laughable (and incredibly ironic), Vinny.

   Is that the best you can come up with?

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5. Joey Says:
   November 18th, 2008 at 8:22 pm

   The scarier part is that these fools had no clue that the Democrats have had control of Congress for the past two years.

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6. Vinny Says:
   November 19th, 2008 at 1:09 am

   Joey,

   I suspect that it would not be too hard to find a YouTube video of equally ignorant people being inteviewed at McCain rallies. It wouldn’t prove anything though.

   BTW, given the way that Democrats get blamed for every problem in the country, it seems like there are an awful lot of people who don’t realize that Republicans controlled the House, the Senate, and the Presidency for six of the last eight years.

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7. Joey Says:
   November 19th, 2008 at 5:09 am

   It’s funny that you should mention that, and I think you should watch the Fox News video on this website: http://howobamagotelected.com/ Also, read about the Zogby poll.

   I happen to know that Conservatives are more informed, because we have to dig for our information. It isn’t spoon-fed to us. I would encourage you to take Zeigler up on his bet and do a study for yourself.

   And Democrats getting blamed for every problem in the country?? By whom? Certainly not the media, and that’s the entire point of this study: Media Malpractice. More people knew about Sarah Palin’s pregnant daughter and her family’s $150,000 wardrobe than who had control of Congress! That’s INSANE.

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8. The Dan Miller Experience Says:
   November 19th, 2008 at 7:00 am

   “At least the Democrats didn’t pick anyone who was so poorly informed to be their candidate for vice-president.”

   Right… Biden, the human gaffe machine.

   I bet you still think Palin thought Africa was a country? Thank you for continuing to prove the point that Zeigler made.

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9. Mark Says:
   November 19th, 2008 at 11:40 am

   I’m with you on that one Vinny! Sarah Palin vs Joe Biden. Now that is laughable. Biden is better hands down.

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10. Joey Says:
    November 19th, 2008 at 11:49 am

    It’s nice that you’re using our public school computers to post political comments on blogs, Mark.

    Keep it up, you guys. You’re just proving our point over and over again.

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11. The Dan Miller Experience Says:
    November 19th, 2008 at 3:19 pm

    But Joey, Sarah Palin has a 17 year old pregnant daughter. So… you know.

    I mean… as far as I know Joe Biden doesn’t have a 17 year old pregnant daughter.

    So let he without a 17 year old pregnant daughter cast the first stone. Which is Joe Biden.

    Wait… what? Where am I? TalkingpointstalkingpointstalkingpointstalkingpointsIRRELEVANTtalkingpoints.

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12. Bob Blake Says:
    November 19th, 2008 at 3:38 pm

    Let’s see now—-
    Stand up Chuck. Oh my gosh. What am I saying? Chuck can’t stand up.. Everybody else stand up and show Chuck what it’s like…

    The answer is a three letter word–j o b s

    If you elect the democrat ticket, within six months we will have an international crisis to deal with.

    Or from the top of the ticket —I have campaigned in 56–or maybe 57–or maybe 92– states.

    Yep–the new pres and vp are certainly towers of intellect…

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13. Vinny Says:
    November 19th, 2008 at 4:54 pm

    When the question accurately reflected what a candidate said rather than just parroting the Republican talking point, the respondents answered correctly. 53% knew that Biden had said “Obama would be tested in his first six months as president by a generated international crisis.” 21% attributed it to McCain which was perfectly reasonable given how quickly he jumped on Biden’s comment and how often he repeated it.

    One of the things the survey shows is that people were paying attention to what was happening during the campaign rather than rather than worrying about what happened ten or twenty years ago . They did not know the details of Biden brief presidential campaign twenty years ago and they did not know the details of Obama’s state senate campaign ten years ago. So what? Love him or hate him, anyone who bases their opinion of Biden on a few old speeches rather than his thirty-six year record in the Senate is a fool. Nor is it any big deal that Obama used a perfectly lawful procedure to challenge his rivals nominating petitions to keep them off the ballot (as opposed to knocking them off). Neither of those were issues that were particularly relevant to the 2008 election.

    The fact that 56% of the respondents did not identify Obama as the “candidate started their political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground” doesn’t show that they were not aware of this Republican talking point. It shows that they did not buy it. The fact of the matter is that the meeting at the Ayers apartment was organized by Illinois State Senator Alice Palmer to announce to her backers that she was running for the U.S. Congress and Obama was invited because Palmer was endorsing him for the state senate seat. The meeting shows a Palmer-Ayers connection rather than an Obama-Ayers connection. Interestingly, Palmer was one of the candidates whose nominating petitions Obama challenged after she changed her mind about running for congress.

    If Ziegler had constructed a poll that compared respondents’ knowledge of things that happened to Obama and Biden during the campaign with things that happened to McCain and Palin ten to twenty years ago, I suspect he would have gotten a similar result in the opposite direction.

    One of the things I found particularly amusing about Ziegler’s appearance on Fox News was his claim that random guessing could have produced a higher rate of correct answers. He apparently did not read the poll results himself since every question included the options “none” and “not sure.”

    BTW Dan,
    I am confident that Palin knows that Africa is a continent rather than a country. I have no doubt that is was, as Bill Kristol reported, just a slip of the tongue in a debate prep session that was either taken out of context or blown out of proportion. I have no doubt that it was just some vindictive Republican trying to make a mountain out of mole hill in much the same way vindictive Republicans tried to manufacture an issue out of the fact that Obama said “fifty-seven” when he meant to say “forty-seven.”

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14. Vinny Says:
    November 19th, 2008 at 6:52 pm

    Oops! I intended my comment to begin with these three paragraphs:

    Other than the question of who controls the congress, it looks like the people who responded to the poll simply recognized that many of the questions were based on Republican talking points rather than facts.

    For example, Obama never said that his policies would likely make energy rates skyrocket and bankrupt the entire coal industry. That was just a Republican talking point. For anyone who actually knew what Obama said, the correct answer was “none” or “not sure.”

    By the same token Obama didn’t say that “the government should redistribute the wealth.” He said that “when you spread the wealth around it’s good for everybody.” I understand why conservatives want to argue that it means the same thing, but that doesn’t change the fact that the correct answer to the poll question was that none of the candidates said they wanted to “redistribute.”

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15. The Dan Miller Experience Says:
    November 19th, 2008 at 8:45 pm

    I’m going to drink every time you say “republican talking point”.

    Luckily I can hold my liquor.

    As far as I’m concerned, the only statistic in this WHOLE thing that really matters is that 57.4% could not correctly identify who controlled congress. I really don’t care who didn’t know about Biden’s plagiarism, I really don’t care who didn’t know about Obama’s first election (although if you’re going to live and die by the man, hail him as a messiah, and talk down to anybody who disagrees with you about him, I would think you might be a tad educated about him). 57% couldn’t answer who controlled congress. 57%!!! These people didn’t know who Nancy Pelosi is! The speaker of the house! Minority leader for FOUR YEARS!!! THEIR PARTY!!!

    You can say whatever you want to about talking points, about how shit that happened 20 years ago isn’t relevant, but who controls congress? Who the most important people in YOUR political party are? How DARE Obama supporters criticize ANYBODY for being stupid or uninformed? And yes, do you see what I just did there? I made a sweeping generalization about Obama supporters. And I feel comfortable with it, because I have met ONE Obama supporter who actually knew what he was talking about when it came to anything, who is well informed and self admitted socialist. And I live in Akron, Ohio- you can throw a rock and hit an Obama supporter (maybe that’s just because I was aiming at them. HA! See what I did there? I’m an intolerant conservative who throws rocks at democrats! Either that or a sarcastic asshole who finds it funny to say that I was throwing rocks at democrats… one of the two).

    This goes way beyond partisanship with me. My disgust does not only lie with democrats. People such as the ones in this video disgust the hell out of me too (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjxzmaXAg9E).

    The uniformed, idiotic close mindedness happens on both sides of the fence. In my experience, it is far more rampant with liberals considering how chic it has become to be a democrat, but it disgusts and angers me on both sides.

    Joey, my apologies for the expletives.

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16. The Dan Miller Experience Says:
    November 19th, 2008 at 8:49 pm

    by the way, the guy asking the questions in that video that i linked to is a moron, but that doesn’t change the fact that some of the people in that video are morons as well.

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17. Joey Says:
    November 19th, 2008 at 9:09 pm

    No apologies need, Experience.

    I love you, man.

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18. Vinny Says:
    November 20th, 2008 at 9:30 am

    I followed the passage of the bailout bill very closely. I am not convinced that anyone was in control of Congress before the election.

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19. The Doc Says:
    November 20th, 2008 at 3:17 pm

    Dan: That wasn’t the point. The point was that these people get their info from left leaning news sources that never report negatively about their partners in crime. I admit though, that the stupidity superficially overshadows this…

    As for voting, IMO only net federal tax payers should be allowed to vote. Allowing someone to vote who isn’t contributing to the tax base makes no sense whatsoever.

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