Even before the results for Michigan’s Republican Presidential Primary were in, exit polls were being released to the public. They revealed some very interesting inconsistencies in the thinking of the voters from the state of Michigan.

Now please understand that this is only a small sampling of the voters who cast their ballots tonight, but I am afraid that the percentages do hold up to the final vote totals and I fear that the answers given represent popular opinion in America.

(The CNN poll referred to in this post can be seen here: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/#MIREP )

The first shocking statistic is that 43% of the voters asked about their opinion of the Bush administration were somewhere between “satisfied” to “enthusiastic” (most in this category voted for Romney, no surprise there), if that alone was not disturbing enough, the 35% that answered that same question anywhere from “dissatisfied” to “angry” voted in the largest numbers for John McCain. Now the only way that this makes any sense, is that my worst fear is being confirmed; the population of the United States of America has been largely depoliticized. Yes a large part of the public knows about the “horse race” aspect of the elections, but obviously very few have been educated on the issues.

Case and point, when asked whether or not they support the war in Iraq, 62% said they approved and 36% said they disapproved (before anybody quotes the latest public opinion poll saying that a much larger % of the US population disapproves of the Iraq War, remember this is the voting public… big difference) and of the 36% that disapproved the largest number of voters voted for John McCain, who recently stated that he would hope that the American people would approve of a 100 year occupation of Iraq.

Again, numbers lead me to a larger point, in this election year and particularly in the Presidential primaries and caucuses that have already taken place people are undermining their deeply held beliefs with their own vote.

Voters know what they believe and the moral reasons for holding those beliefs, but they are simply not doing the homework to match up their beliefs with a candidate that will act on behalf of what they think is the right thing to do. Unfortunately it is too late for the people of Michigan, Iowa, New Hampshire and Wyoming. But the rest of the country still has a chance to get educated.

I am not ready to believe that the people in Michigan tonight that cast their ballots for Romney and McCain knew what they were doing. I want to believe that the large majority of them were tricked into it by passively watching the old media. I would like to think that the first few battles have been lost, but the larger war is still up for grabs. And I believe that the way this happens is through destigmatisation of the truth.

Popularity: 1% [?]