Posted by Ilya Somin:
Political Ignorance and the 2008 Election:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_12_14-2008_12_20.shtml#1229391457
The conservative "How Obama Got Elected" website has put up [1]survey
data from polls conducted by Zogby and Wilson Research that shows
extensive political ignorance among Obama votes. For example, some 57
(in the Zogby poll) to 59% (Wilson poll) of Obama voters didn't known
that the Democrats controlled Congress at the time of the election. By
contrast, 63% of McCain supporters got this question right in the
Wilson survey (Zogby did not conduct a separate survey of McCain
supporters on this issue). Similarly, [2]the Zogby results showed that
the vast majority of Obama voters were unaware of various negatives
about Obama and vice presidential nominee Joe Biden; McCain voters
scored better on these questions. Ignorance about Democratic control
of Congress is particularly important, because understanding of that
fact might have led voters conclude that the Democrats shared at least
some responsibility for the financial crisis and other recent policy
failures. This information might not have prevented them from putting
Obama in the White House; but it could well have led them to forego
giving the Democrats greatly expanded congressional majorities.
The "How Obama Got Elected" authors argue that this shows that
political ignorance was a major factor in Obama's victory. To an
extent, it probably was. However, Democrats can easily point to
comparable ignorance by Republican-leaning voters. For example, [3]in
2004, a high proportion of Bush voters believed that large-scale WMD
caches or programs had been found in Iraq, despite considerable
evidence to the contrary.
More generally, it is not surprising that voters on both sides are
often ignorant about a wide range of issues. As I have often pointed
out in my scholarship (e.g.[4] here), it is in fact rational for most
voters to be ignorant about politics because of the very low
probability that any individual vote will change electoral outcomes.
In addition, voters have little incentive to do an unbiased evaluation
of the information they do have. As a result,[5] "political fans"
often act like sports fans, overvaluing information that supports
their preferred "team" and ignoring or downplaying anything that makes
the team look bad. Such bias may explain why Obama voters in the
Wilson survey were less likely to know information that reflected
badly on the Democrats, whereas McCain voters had the opposite bias
(e.g. - a smaller percentage of McCain voters than Obama voters knew
that McCain had been implicated in the Keating Five scandal). As the
"How Obama Got Elected" site[6] notes, "in general, the voters did
universally worse on questions where the negative information was
about their candidate."
Of course,[7] voters were not ignorant across the board:
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.
Conservatives will no doubt argue that these Palin negatives stuck in
the voters' minds because of media bias. That may be true to some
extent. But it is probably more likely that they became well known
because they were "human interest" stories that could grab the
attention of ordinary voters who find complex policy issues boring.
There is a long history of polling data showing higher knowledge
levels about human interest stories than policy stories. For example,
two of the most widely known facts about the first President Bush was
that he hated broccoli and owned a dog named Millie.
Widespread political ignorance and bias give partisans plenty of data
that demonstrates' the ignorance of their opponents' voters.
Unfortunately, they tend to ignore the reality their own side's voters
are usually just as bad.
The true lesson of political knowledge polls is not that either
Democrats or Republicans are uniquely ignorant, but that we should
reduce the power of government. That way, fewer important decisions
will be made under the influence of electoral processes where
ignorance, bias, and irrationality play such an enormous role.
References
1. http://www.howobamagotelected.com/#wilson
2. http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.cfm?ID=1642
3. http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/20263/?page=entire
4. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=916963
5. http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_09_21-2008_09_27.shtml#1222317278
6. http://www.howobamagotelected.com/#wilson
7. http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.cfm?ID=1642
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