Tuesday, July 13, 2010

"I find your lack of faith disturbing"

Sorry, but what else can you make of this attempted headline grabber.

Majority of Americans lack faith in Obama: poll


Of course, others fare worse, but this is really a shitty poll question that is open to different interpretations.

Asked how much confidence they have in Obama to make the right decisions for the country's future, 58 percent of respondents said "just some" or "none."

Sixty-eight percent expressed the same sentiments about Democrats in Congress and 72 percent said the same of Republicans.


What the hell does "some" mean? I'm pretty sure in my thirty-plus years of political consciousness there's not one President I would have answered better than "just some" confidence.

8 comments:

DrDick said...

Speaking as someone who occasionally teaches social science research methods, including survey design, that is egregiously poorly worded in a way that can only be deliberate.

Major Woody said...

The other problem, of course, is what that actually means. Let's assume for a moment that the 58% "lack faith" in the president, whatever that means. The media will probably interpret that as "58% of Americans would prefer more conservative policies and actions", while clearly, some if not the lion's share of that 58% would prefer more progressive actions.

DrDick said...

Major Woody -

As I said, this is a deliberately manipulated question designed to produce an ambiguous result which could be interpreted the way the pollster wanted. No reputably firm with any knowledge of survey design would include a question like that if they really wanted to know how people feel about the president and his policies.

pansypoo said...

velvety numerical computations.

Olives and Arrows said...

Disenchanted leftists might account for a significant portion of Obama's declining numbers.

Many of our more extreme leftists are very pissed that Barack
Obama has largely continued the Bush administration foreign policies. Policies such as leaving most of the troops in Iraq, continuing warrantless wiretaps of terrorists, keeping Gitmo open and copying the successful surge strategy in Afghanistan have contributed to many leftists becoming inwardly disenchanted with Obama. Some leftist losers actually openly express their dismay, but the number that do are prolly less than a quarter of the total.


...yep...very pissed. The fucking losers.

Olives and Arrows said...

// Oh LOOK !! Andrew Cuomo !!! //

Olives and Arrows said...

...fuckkking losers

pansypoo said...

blah bla bl b.