Ignorants For Bush
The idea that red state voters chose Bush because they’re ignorant or uneducated is bigoted, not to mention inaccurate.
Steven Waldman: Perverted, God-Hating Frenchies vs. Inbred, Sex-Obsessed Yokels
Of course not all Bush supporters are ignorant, but polling information released by the Program on International Policy Attitudes on October 21 indicated that many of them were (are?) ignorant of key facts about Iraq, which seems like a pretty important issue to me.
The primary poll was conducted October 12-18 with 968 respondents, but the analysis also included polls that were conducted September 3-7 and September 8-12, with 798 and 959 respondents, respectively. Margins of error ranged from 3.2-4%.
In recent months, the American public has been presented reports by the Senate Intelligence Committee, and the heads of the Iraq Survey Group David Kay and Charles Duelfer (chosen by the president), concluding that before the war Iraq had neither weapons of mass destruction, nor even a significant program for developing them. Nonetheless, 72% of Bush supporters continued to hold to the view that Iraq had actual WMD (47%) or a major program for developing them (25%). Only 26% of Kerry supporters hold such beliefs.
Despite the 9/11 Commission report saying there is no evidence Iraq was providing significant support to al Qaeda, 75% of Bush supporters believe Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda (30% of Kerry supporters), with 20% believing that Iraq was directly involved in 9/11. Sixty-three percent of Bush supporters even believe that clear evidence of this support has been found, while 85% of Kerry supporters believe the opposite.
The Separate Realities of Bush and Kerry Supporters, a PIPA/KN Study (PDF)
Somehow, I doubt these numbers changed significantly between the time of the polling and the election.
Leave a Reply