If You Voted for Barack Obama, You Might Be Stupid
If I'm kinda late getting this up, it's only because I've been pretty much laughing non-stop and unable to type anything since I first read it earlier this afternoon.
Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight was invited to interview John Ziegler, former radio talk show host and current man behind the ingenius website IfYouVotedForBarackObamaYouAreAnAsshole.com (or something), which — through the amazing powers of selective polling (via John Zogby, of course), fairy dust and black bile — makes a undeniable case for the argument that all Barack Obama voters are stupid, uninformed, mentally disabled and 7/12ths black.
I digress.
You have to read the interview. No, you have to. This is not a request or a suggestion. You're not allowed not to. Even if you don't care about (or agree with) Ziegler's findings, his manner during the phone interview is spectacular in the scope of its unbridled anger and amazement that anyone could possibly disagree with his one-sided polling techniques.
For what it's worth, I'd imagine that there were a slightly higher percentage of uninformed Obama voters than McCain voters. Which is not at all to say the same thing as there being more uninformed Obama voters than McCain voters. I'd guess that Obama pulled in more uninformed and informed voters over all.
And I say this for two reasons, with the first being admittedly very cynical:
1) I think that all elections are largely won by the guy who manages to pull in more stupid people than the other guy. Let's face it, those are the people who decide elections. That's why television ads tend to work. Because they're aimed directly at the stupid people.
2) Obama recieved a lot more first-time voters. Of course first time voters are gonna be less-well-informed than longtime voters.
Unfortunately, Ziegler did not administer his poll to a single McCain voter, so we have no way of how they would have faired under the same conditions.
To quote Ziegler's own closing argument: "Go fuck yourself."
RSS
David Foster Wallace wrote an essay about Ziegler that was surprisingly sympathetic, even though Ziegler came off as totally neurotic in the piece. I don't think, had he lived, Wallace could have maintained that same sympathy after reading that ridiculous transcript.
Who gives a Type I error what kind of bad language Ziegler uses. His poll makes fuzzy math look as smooth as a stupid voters newborn ass.
@Cube:
His (Dennis's) math most certainly sucks, not because of the silly Zogby poll, but because of his own writing (which has his own assumptions):
"For what it's worth, I'd imagine that there were a slightly higher percentage of uninformed Obama voters than McCain voters. Which is not at all to say the same thing as there being more uninformed Obama voters than McCain voters. I'd guess that Obama pulled in more uninformed and informed voters over all."
IF he is assuming that there are more percentage of uninformed Obama supporters, THEN it implies that there are more number of uninformed Obama supporters also (since more than 52% of the country supports Obama). This is true any way you look at it. Let me know if you want numerical examples.
And, of course, Ziegler is biased. The interview was fun though. Props to Nate.
What is the matter liberal-nazis? Can't handle being beat at your own game? The guy is just showing many of Obama's voters are brainwashed, racist, know-nothing idiots… something you all do on try to push on Republicans on a daily basis. What a great video because we ALL know how true it is. Duh? Congress? Senate leader? Uhhhh… DOY!! How about $150,000 on clothes? Zombies say: Oh, Sarah Palin. Once again, liberals are hate-filled, brain-dead fools NEVER getting a balanced view of life or politics. This is why the left craps its pants with Fox news and talk radio. Liberalism=NAZIS.
"Something you all try to push." Just putting it in before the lib/nazis make their comments.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200504/wallace
It is true that no one on either side of the studio's thick window expresses or even alludes to any of these objections. But this is not because Mr. Z.'s support staff is stupid, or hateful, or even necessarily on board with sweeping jingoistic claims. It is because they understand the particular codes and imperatives of large-market talk radio. The fact of the matter is that it is not John Ziegler's job to be responsible, or nuanced, or to think about whether his on-air comments are productive or dangerous, or cogent, or even defensible. That is not to say that the host would not defend his "we're better"—strenuously—or that he does not believe it's true. It is to say that he has exactly one on-air job, and that is to be stimulating. An obvious point, but it's one that's often overlooked by people who complain about propaganda, misinformation, and irresponsibility in commercial talk radio. Whatever else they are, the above-type objections to "We're better than the Arab world" are calls to accountability. They are the sort of criticisms one might make of, say, a journalist, someone whose job description includes being responsible about what he says in public. And KFI's John Ziegler is not a journalist—he is an entertainer. Or maybe it's better to say that he is part of a peculiar, modern, and very popular type of news industry, one that manages to enjoy the authority and influence of journalism without the stodgy constraints of fairness, objectivity, and responsibility that make trying to tell the truth such a drag for everyone involved. It is a frightening industry, though not for any of the simple reasons most critics give.
"something you try to push on Republicans on a daily basis." Sorry for the mistake lib/nazis.
Whatever the social effects of talk radio or the partisan agendas of certain hosts, it is a fallacy that political talk radio is motivated by ideology. It is not. Political talk radio is a business, and it is motivated by revenue. The conservatism that dominates today's AM airwaves does so because it generates high Arbitron ratings, high ad rates, and maximum profits.
Math dude,
The difference is Dennis grants out his argument is an extrapolation based on an assumption, versus a dickhead who bases his conclusions as fact. Those conclusions are based on hasty generalizations, assumptions, undersampling, stupidity, and not knowing the baseline stupidity level. Also, Dennis does not purport to be some guru of statistics. He merely makes a gut level argument which is probably right — that Obama got more stupids. Yet, that does not mean stupid people vote for Obama. Also, he didn't do research like the jabroni Ziegler and tilt the playing field so as to have a desired result by stacking the deck. A post-hoc fallacy. In fact, I don't think Dennis used math really. Just reasonable argument that can be rebutted perhaps with reasonable counterarguments. Far different than Ziegler. Far different than sucking.
His first premise (shockingly called "1") is wholly reasonable. In fact, there was a real poll that demonstrated as much. Also, I don't see any numbers in there.
His second premise (called Q) is that first time voters are not as educated as experienced voters. Not patently absurd.
What is absurd is a scientific poll (this is a fact reduced site) that is anything but that. The technical word for Ziegler's poll is shit. A biggie is the TYPE I ERROR. It's kinda like a false positive for being prego. Actually, wikipoop had a good bit about type 1 and 2 errors.
Regardless, con todo respecto to Dennis, the point is that the scientist, not the satirist, is fucked and making money on it. He has a bias. It's clear. Any math person would scoff at that crap. And, I'm no math person. I just was super baked during statistics and logic and remember better. Ziegler, flat out, is wrong and purposefully misleading. How many stupids in America? Think that might be a relevant number? What would a graph look like of the stupid vote for decades? Why did Ziegler fail to address any of the points except to rely on ad hominem attacks? Why did the sample size not include McCain supporters? Do the questions need to be the same? Aren't his questions biased? Aren't there far more objective questions that can be derived equally to show stupidity? Shall I go on? Shit. I'm just a blogger and I can rip that shit up. Also, that dude ain't just gonna pay me for costs I expend to take his challenge. Let's make a wager. If he sells his flick, I want to wet my beak and have the truth aired. But, he'd probably tell me to fuck off rather than respond with logic. And such.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_I_and_type_II_errors