Beauty is Imperfection

(Originally posted Sunday, May 04, 2008 )

What Statistics Are We Using To Miscommunicate and Misrepresent The Way People Feel During This Voting Season?

–*Fifty-eight percent of Americans say they have not changed their opinion of Barack Obama during the recent flap with his former pastor, who it is said made inflammatory remarks about America

–*Fifty-one percent, however, say that it could bother them later in the campaign season

–*Forty-two percent say this is because they are assuming it will affect other people’s opinions, and thus hurt Obama’s electability. So they are voting based on what other people are thinking.

–*Thirty-one percent say that they are reconsidering whether the relationship with the pastor might actually hurt their feelings about Obama now that a journalist has called them and asked them if it sways their opinion.

–*Thirty-five percent of those respondents asked the poller, “How do you think I should feel?”

–*Ninety-nine percent of those respondents who asked for help with their answer were told by the poller that he could not do it because it would harm the results

–*One hundred percent of those pollers do not understand that they are already harming the results by asking people loaded questions that have absolutely nothing to do with anything.

–*Fifty-eight percent of respondents said that given the choice of John McCain or Hillary Clinton in November, they would rather eat a large roast beef sandwich

–*Thirty-percent of those said they would want onion on it.

–*Twenty-four percent of those said not too much onion.

–*Eighty-eight percent of those polled said that the Democratic candidates’ promise of gas tax relief was a political stunt to curry favor with the public.

–*Fifty-six percent said that, as far as political stunts go, that one would probably work

–*Sixty-four percent of Americans said that they would pay more taxes for health care if the system worked.

–*Even though that would be communism, said 2%.

–*Fifty-eight percent of those who say socialized medicine is communism are not rich, they say, they are simply absolutist and dogmatic and tend to see the issue of free market economies in black and white terms.

–*100% of those with borderline personality disorder tend to see the world in dogmatic and black and white terms

–*Sixty-percent of voters think the Iraq War was a mistake

–*Twenty to thirty percent of those people might have done well to think about that in 2003 when many smart people with lots of empirical evidence could have told them that it was unjustifiable and immoral and would end up like an April turd-floater in Texas

–*Fifty-one percent of voters think Hillary has the right stuff

–*Even though that number was only 41% two days ago.

–*Which means 10% are pretty goddamned fickle and probably listen to their television too much

–*100% of Obama voters think Clinton should drop out

–*100% of Clinton voters think Obama should drop out

–*.0007% are Amish living in relative peace in their buggies and a lot of them don’t know know jack about the election. “What say thee, English? There’s an election afoot?”

–*Which means those 0.0007% seem to be just as qualified as anybody else.