Zogby Sacrifices Its Credibility With a Push Poll

I used to be a huge fan of John Zogby and his polls. But for whatever reason, in recent years, the entire Zogby organization seems to have gone off the deep end. Zogby himself seems to have gone out of his way to demonstrate personal bias, which is not good for a pollster, as evidenced by his latest project, for which he is rightfully taking a lot of heat, to the point that the organization has had to issue a plaintive rationalization.

 

Meet John Ziegler. Ziegler, who is/was one of the worst right wing talk show hosts in the country (is he still on KFI?), is doing a documentary called "Media Malpractice… How Obama Got Elected." Of course, he mostly leaves out the "Media Malpractice…" part on his web site for the film, probably because he knows how popular Obama is, and how unpopular a negative film about Obama's election would be. And after all,  right wingers are about nothing but making money, even if you have to fool people to do it. And let's face it; fooling people is essentially what right wing talk radio IS.

 

In all fairness, however, Ziegler's intentions with this film are pretty much up front, when you actually read the web site. Here is the first paragraph:

 

On November 4th, 2008 millions of Americans were shocked that a man of Barack Obama's limited experience, extreme liberal positions and radical political alliances could be elected President of the United States. For many of these Americans, the explanation was rather simple... the news media, completely enamored with Obama, simply refused to do their job.

 

Now, I'm a huge critic of the media; I think the news media largely sucks, although it seems to be more aware of its "suckitude" these days, and there is evidence that they may be emerging from their slumber. We'll see. But that's not Ziegler's point. His point is in the second paragraph:

 

On Election day twelve Obama voters were interviewed extensively right after they voted to learn how the news media impacted their knowledge of what occurred during the campaign. These voters were chosen for their apparent intelligence/verbal abilities and willingness to express their opinions to a large audience. The rather shocking video below seeks to provide some insight into which information broke through the news media clutter and which did not.

 

Okay, so basically, he will try to prove that all Obama voters are stupid, and that's why they voted for Obama. That's exactly what he says above; they looked stupid, but listen to what came out of their mouths.

 

Alright, so we have this right wing talk show clown, John Ziegler, who is making a "documentary" that will purport to "prove" that almost all Obama voters are dipshits. We are all stupid, and we know nothing about the man, or what he stands for. Got it so far?

 

Well, how do you get legitimacy for such a ridiculous notion? Well, you get a relatively well-respected name to back you. You know, like Zogby International. And you devise a list of questions designed to prove your main point; that all Obama voters are stupid.

 

So, Zogby conducts this poll, in which they call 512 Obama supporters nationwide, and ask them 12 "simple" multiple choice questions. Here are the questions, and only the questions, to start with;

 

200. Before this past election, which political party controlled both houses of congress?

201. Which candidate could not say how many houses they own?

202. Which candidate said they could see Russia from their house?

203. Which candidate had to quit a previous political campaign because they were found to have plagiarized a speech?

204. Which candidate won their first election by getting all of their opponents kicked off the ballot?

205. Which candidate wore clothes that their political party reportedly spent $150,000 on?

206. Which candidate currently has a pregnant teenage daughter?

207. Which candidate said that Obama would be tested in his first six months as president by a generated international crisis?

208. Which candidate claimed to have campaigned in 57 states?

209. Which candidate said their policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket?

210. Which candidate said that the government should redistribute the wealth?

211. Which candidate started their political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground?

 

Now, if you're an unbiased, reputable pollster, the above list of questions should trouble you.

 

Essentially, the intent of this documentary is to show that the media blew it, and didn't cover the negative aspects of the Obama campaign, but overwhelmingly covered the negative aspects of McCain's. Therefore, according to Ziegler, people who voted for Obama were duped. 

 

But look at the difference in the questions. Did you notice that the questions about the McCain-Palin negatives are straightforward, while the questions about the Obama-Biden negatives are quite non-specific? "Which candidate said they could see Russia from their house?" (which isn't even a valid question) is far more direct than "Which candidate had to quit a previous political campaign because they were found to have plagiarized a speech?"

 

But look at some of the results of these questions:

 

According to Ziegler's web site, "57.4% could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)" (See that little biased shot in there?)

 

The problem is, no party controls Congress. The Democrats control the House, but they don't actually control the Senate. They have 49 seats, and one of those, Tim Johnson's, was vacant through most of the session. Therefore, that question is invalid. Therefore, the 57.4% is based on his assumption, which is incorrect, that Democrats control Congress.

 

The third question is also absolutely invalid, because Sarah Palin never, ever said, "I can see Alaska from my house." That was Tina Fey. Sarah Palin claimed she had foreign policy experience because Russia was visible from a remote point in Alaska, not that she could see Russia from her house. In other words, pollsters were asking questions without a valid answer, so that John Ziegler could call respondents "stupid" because they answered wrong. Since when do legitimate pollsters ask multiple choice questions, without supplying the correct answer as one of the choices?

 

According to Ziegler's web site, "71.8% could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing). " Seriously, who even cares about this one? It was 21 years ago, while Sarah Palin was still doing sports reporting and dreaming of ESPN.  But more than that, the plagiarism was actually quite minor; he had used the lines before, and referenced the source; he simply forgot to do so a couple of times, and the press made a big deal of it. 

And what about the Bill Ayers' question? First of all, what was the point of leaving Ayers' name out of the question, and cryptically referring to "two members of the Weather Underground"? And could someone please explain to me what "launched his career" means,"when it comes to running for office for the first time? 

By the way, Obama never got anyone "kicked off the ballot," so that's another illegitimate question, designed to make Obama seem like a dirty politician, whom voters unwittingly supported. Media Matters has more details here, but suffice it to say, Obama's opponents actually seem to have been the ones playing dirty.

Essentially, what you have here is a series of 12 questions that are designed to prove a conclusion; that Obama voters are stupid morons, who were easily duped into electing him president. 

 

Basically, folks, if you want to know what a push poll is, you're looking at it.

John Zogby disagrees. On his web site, he posts the following:

"We stand by the results our survey work on behalf of John Ziegler, as we stand by all of our work. We reject the notion that this was a push poll because it very simply wasn't. It was a legitimate effort to test the knowledge of voters who cast ballots for Barack Obama in the Nov. 4 election. Push polls are a malicious effort to sway public opinion one way or the other, while message and knowledge testing is quite another effort of public opinion research that is legitimate inquiry and has value in the public square. In this case, the respondents were given a full range of responses and were not pressured or influenced to respond in one way or another. This poll was not designed to hurt anyone, which is obvious as it was conducted after the election. The client is free to draw his own conclusions about the research, as are bloggers and other members of society. But Zogby International is a neutral party in this matter. We were hired to test public opinion on a particular subject and with no ax to grind, that's exactly what we did. We don't have to agree or disagree with the questions, we simply ask them and provide the client with a fair and accurate set of data reflecting public opinion." - John Zogby

No, John, it wasn't a "legitimate" anything. There were few facts contained in any other the questions, which means there were no right answers to most of them, as I pointed out above. If you were to ask 512 random Rhodes Scholars the same questions, and only gave them the answers included, they probably would have answered the same way. The questions designed to determine knowledge about McCain-Palin negatives were far more direct than the questions designed to determine knowledge about Obama-Biden negatives.

A push poll is simply a poll in which someone comes up with a conclusion they wish to make, and then asks questions in order to make the conclusion true. That's what this poll does, and John Zogby should be ashamed of himself for engaging in such a thing. eputable polling organizations simply don't do push polling. Period.