I find this scary

[BlaqueKatt]

terrifying really-"Howard Stern sends a correspondent out to talk to Harlem voters about Obama. The only twist? The correspondent intentionally attributes McCain’s positions to Obama, even saying “Do you support Obama’s choice of Sarah Palin to be his VP?” Incredibly, it didn’t seem to phase these voters in their support of Obama"

sound here




They said they supported Obama's Pro-life stance, keeping the troops in Iraq, and were against stem-cell research. people voting and not knowing the issues or the stance or running mate of the candidate they claim to support. They even said he made a great choice in choosing Sarah Palin to be his running mate.

[Greenday]

Here's what they don't tell you: how many people TOTAL did they talk to? I've already listened to it before and found it funny. But they don't tell you how many people they talked to that said, "Wtf is wrong with you, Obama isn't those things." They could have talked to like 100 people and all they did was just show 4 of the 100 people.

[Sylvia727]

Still, four voters out of every 100, or even 1,000, is way too many.

It just confirms what I already knew: when we as a species spit in the face of natural selection, it comes back to bite us in the tush.

[Greenday]

Well, it's no different from having political parties in general. A lot of people vote for the party, no based on who they actually think is better. Now, if we got rid of the party system, people would have to *gasp* think for themselves.

[anriana]

According to the comments there were clips from two people.


While I agree that these are major issues to most people, perhaps they were not the largest issues to those people who were interviewed? Maybe they're more invested in the economic positions of the candidates than their positions on Iraq or abortion stances.


I'll be honest, I'm voting for Obama but I don't fully know his position on immigration, gun control, or social security. (just picking diff topics from : http://www.ontheissues.org/Barack_Obama.htm) because those aren't my main topics of interest. Also, if one of the VP choices this election wasn't so widely discussed, I probably would know very little about either of the candidate's views.

[Slytovhand]

A tv program called 'The Chasers' did something similar a few years back. They were in various parts of the US and asked some fairly standard type questions to average US citizens... including having a map and marking Australia as "Iraq", asking people to find it on said map...

They also did a bit where they told a couple of people that Pres Bush was going to invade France (ok - not sure which country they said..., but it was somewhat equally ridiculous!), and would they support it. Answer was "hell yeah" if the president thinks we should, then I'll support it all the way..... <sigh>

Of course, they only show the ones that will make it funny and to cultivate a stereotype... dunno how many they really asked, and how many thought they must be stupid!

But - that vid does say one thing that I've been saying for a while - there are people who will vote for Obama (or McCain) and not know a thing about them. There are people who are going to vote for him because he is black - and to them, that's all that matters... (or that McCain is white - and that's all that matters...)

[Boozy]

terrifying really-"Howard Stern sends a correspondent out to talk to Harlem voters about Obama. The only twist? The correspondent intentionally attributes McCain’s positions to Obama, even saying “Do you support Obama’s choice of Sarah Palin to be his VP?”

I find this scary, too, but maybe for different reasons.

It's essentially push polling. Stern's a complete idiot with no substantial interest in anything outside of lesbian sex, so I'm sure the intent was comedy and not spreading misinformation. But that's the end result, and I think it's a bit irresponsible of them.

[BlaqueKatt]

so I'm sure the intent was comedy and not spreading misinformation. But that's the end result, and I think it's a bit irresponsible of them.

I don't see it as "spreading misinformation" I see it more as exposing the total and complete ignorance on the part of some voters.

The people interviewed said they supported Obama because of his stance on the issues, and didn't even know what his stance was, or who he was running with*, and I'm sorry but unless you've been living in a cave for the past month there is no excuse for not knowing at least who your candidate's running mate is. with the number of political ads on the TV and radio, the newspaper, and bumperstickers-come on-people that don't even live in the US know that much.

*they either lied about why they supported him, or are woefully uninformed/willfully ignorant-the female interviewed claimed she watched the debates, and still said she thought he made the right choice in picking Sarah Palin-what does that tell you?

I don't care why someone chooses to vote whatever way they do, but you sound like an ignorant jackass when the reason you claim to support them, you obviously know nothing about. Heck as I've said before the ONLY reason I'm voting for Ralph Nader is because in order to have access to federal campaign money the party has to get 10% of the vote-I'm trying to get them the 10%(that and both Obama and McCain have stances on some issues important to me that I don't agree with-and I refuse to compromise on those issues-one of them has around 10-15 that I don't agree with and one has around 5-10)

[HowMayIHelpMe?]

While it's certainly an entertaining clip, it's also useful in that it is illuminating a degree of ignorance out there on the streets. At a minimum, this shows you that it will always be easy to find folks who just take things as they are given to them without examination.

I actually perpetuated something like this on my old hometown some years ago. I went out onto Main Street in the town I was in (this was in Delaware) and dressed the part of a reporter. Which is to say, I had a micro-recorder on me for "field recording", a blazer and nice pants, and a notebook and pencil.
I went around asking people what their opinion was of the town council's decision to okay the demolition of the local town library to make way for a Hooters superstore.

A few older people's eyes got wide. One or two of the college kids looked at me skeptically. But I forced the information into them by being as serious and unbending as possible. And most of the people that I left (I tried to do the interviews with pairs of people to foment discussion) were still talking about it animatedly as I walked away.

The truth never matters if you're a good enough magician with words.

[Rapscallion]

Stern's a complete idiot with no substantial interest in anything outside of lesbian sex,

I don't even know what he looks like and have never heard/seen any of his work, but he's just gone up in my estimation for some reason...



Rapscallion