Thursday, December 27, 2007

Cognitive dissonance

I was set to go all ranty about the just announced annual poll concerning who Americans most admire. The winners were George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton.

Given the President's low approval rating , dissatisfaction with the war and everything else, it seems amazing to me that he could win dogcatcher, much less "Most Admired." Turns out, there's a simple explanation.

According to Frank Newport, Gallup Poll editor in chief, U.S. presidents typically come in first in this yearly rite, done this month as part of the latest USA TODAY/Gallup Poll.

Bush's support — he was the choice of 10% of 1,011 Americans polled — was the lowest since he took office in 2001 and 2 percentage points above the No. 2 choice, former president Bill Clinton.

So the President won with 10%, meaning the voting was split many, many ways. Makes sense. Of course, it also makes the poll meaningless. But that would never stop the media from announcing it anyway.

5 comments:

ahtitan said...

Even so, 10% seems high. I can't quite get my mind around ANYONE naming him, let alone 100 people.

Anonymous said...

In your summary, you said Hillary was the the 2nd place winner, but the quote from the article says Bill. Which is it?

Ipecac said...

Men and women were separate categories.

Eric Haas said...

It doesn’t surprise me that a certain segment of the population voted for GW. I am surprised that no one else did better, though.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Bob. It's sort of meaningless. Considering that Bush's approval rating is around 30%, it isn't surprising to me that you would get at least 10% that admire him because I would expect that those 30% are the most passionate supporters at this point.