Globally Rational

Back in February 2007, USA Today/Gallup asked Americans the following question:

“Between now and the 2008 political conventions, there will be discussion about the qualifications of presidential candidates — their education, age, religion, race, and so on. If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be 72 years old, would you vote for that person?“

42% of people said “no” and 15% were undecided.  That means that if their party nominated a 72 year-old, 3 out of 7 people would vote for somebody else.  In the same poll, 48-50% of people supported Obama or Hillary in a November election against McCain.  That would lead a person to believe that, since 42% of people should technically vote against McCain solely because of his age, only 6-8% of people actually supported Obama or Hillary.  In fact, I think it’s much easier to vote for McCain when you attach a name to his age… people were averse to voting for a 72 year-old, but plenty of people were willing to vote for McCain.

Are we serious?  In a perfect world, I think we’d remove all of the faces from political elections.  If we only knew a candidate’s political stances and credentials (and we never saw their faces until after they get elected), I think more people would dismiss McCain just because they don’t want to vote for a guy who’d be 80 years old by the time he finishes his second term.  What do you think?

I like looking at data and studies… they cast a lot of light on reality.  I’ve noticed plenty of people say things like “I don’t care about the numbers, this is what my experience says”… but I don’t think that any single person’s experience is as valuable as the experience of the thousands of people involved in the study.  If we weren’t willing to vote for a 72 year-old, then why were we willing to vote for McCain?

I like McCain… I won’t vote for him (not because of his age, but because of his stance on the issues), but I do like him.  I think that he’s better than Hillary and that he’s not as good as Obama… but that’s irrelevant.  The question here is about numbers; if we weren’t willing to vote for a 72 year-old, then why were we willing to vote for McCain?

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