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
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)