Released: November 18,
2008
Zogby Poll: Almost No Obama Voters Ace
Election Test
Survey finds most Obama voters remembered negative coverage of
McCain/Palin statements but struggled to correctly answer questions about
coverage associated with Obama/Biden
eleased: November 18,
2008
Zogby Poll: Almost No Obama Voters Ace
Election Test
Survey finds most Obama voters remembered negative coverage of
McCain/Palin statements but struggled to correctly answer questions about
coverage associated with Obama/Biden
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.
Zogby
Statement on Ziegler poll
http://www.zogby.com/news/wf-dfs.pdf
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.
"We stand by the results our
survey work on behalf of John Ziegler, as we stand by all of our work. We
reject the notion that this was a push poll because it very simply wasn't. It
was a legitimate effort to test the knowledge of voters who cast ballots for
Barack Obama in the Nov. 4 election. Push polls are a malicious effort to
sway public opinion one way or the other, while message and knowledge testing
is quite another effort of public opinion research that is legitimate inquiry
and has value in the public square. In this case, the respondents were given
a full range of responses and were not pressured or influenced to respond in
one way or another. This poll was not designed to hurt anyone, which is
obvious as it was conducted after the election. The client is free to draw
his own conclusions about the research, as are bloggers and other members of
society. But Zogby International is a neutral party in this matter. We were
hired to test public opinion on a particular subject and with no ax to grind,
that's exactly what we did. We don't have to agree or disagree with the
questions, we simply ask them and provide the client with a fair and accurate
set of data reflecting public opinion." - John Zogby"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.
For content, contact: John Ziegler at talktozig@aol.com.
For more information on Ziegler's upcoming
documentary film, Media Malpractice...How Obama Got Elected, please
visit www.HowObamaGotElected.com,
where there is a video of Obama voters on election day being asked many of the
same questions.
For methodology, contact: Fritz Wenzel,
315-624-0200 ext. 229 or 419-205-0287 or fritz@zogby.com.
To view the survey results, please visit http://www.zogby.com/news/wf-dfs.pdf.
(11/18/2008)