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4 november 2004 the stentorian | ncssm The Hype about Politics: Political Unawareness at Science and Math Jeffrey Tang I t’s election time, and some times you wonder how much the populace actually knows about candidates and politicians. Do people really know who they are voting for? I conducted a survey to see how politically aware students at NCSSM are, though, politically “unaware” might be more appropriate. We surveyed a hundred people during one lunch period out side the cafeteria. All students walking by were invited to fill a survey, and we acknowledge that there may be voluntary bias in the setup of the investi gation. Phillip Golladay, Karthik Sekar, Chris McLain, and loan Tran-phu helped with distribution of surveys. We stayed until all the ballots were filled. The survey askd for their opinions of a particular politician, from strongly disap prove to strongly approve, with no opinion for politicians whom students don’t know about. Furthermore, each Table 1 shown below: (see Table 1) I included Lincoln Chafee and Zell Miller Table 2; door neighbor, Joseph Thompson is nobody, just a generic American name, and Ronald Luciano D-NC Holiext Grisss R-NC Joseph Thon^son D-NC Buddy Taylor R- NC because they tend against their party lines. For the sur vey, politicis were arranged sc that they were surveys had Republican to start while the remaining half started with a Democratic politi cian. For good measure, I included four people who aren’t politicians at all and made up their party affilia te vote Buddy Taylor is Nick Cook’s Table 3 Democrats definitely score higher marks than their Republican counterparts. It is interest ing to note that Edwards and Kerry top the charts aside from McCain while Cheney and Bush are at the bottom. Furthermore, my good friend Mr. Luciano has the honor of being the fifth-high- itrongiy arongiy (%l Disapprove Disapprove Mai Approve Approve No Opinion Gcoi^BikI 48 22 5 10 10 5 JokKeriy 17 20 13 26 18 6 MGien^ 37 26 9 9 11 8 JokEilMds 16 13 20 19 20 12 est “politician,” and Joseph Thompson did pretty well him self Meanwhile, also interest ing is that aside from McCain, Buddy Taylor and Robert Griggs fare better than every other Republican. Our surveys were filled with “straight tickets,” a pretty zigzag of strongly approves and strongly disap proves. Alas, 11 people strong ly disapprove of Mr. Luciano, and eight people strongly approve of him without know ing him. Maybe he should run for public office some day. The lesson we should all learn is to know about the candidate before we vote. Party affiliations mean little if anything. There are some Republicans more liberal than some Democratic politicians, and vice versa. Don’t vote for just anyone. Vote for someone whose opinions correspond to yours. dog. Geoiige W. Bush R-TX Presidential Candidate (I) JohnKeriy D-MA Presidential Candidate - Dick Cheney R-WY Vice Presidential Candidate (1) John Edwards D-NC Vice Presidential Candidate Mik)e£as% D-NC Gubernatorial Candidate (I) Elizabeth Dole R-NC US Senator Erskuie Boivles D-NC US Senate Candidate Richard Bun R-NC US Senate Candidate John McCain R-AZ US Senator Hillaiy Chnlon D-NY US Senator 1 Lincoln Cha&e R-RI US Senator ] ZellMiller D-GA US Senator f Next, I devisei a system to measur the results Strongly disap prove” would be a the‘-bottom *o§ th' scale (0), whil( “Strongly Approve’ would be Table 4 Therefore, score; would range fron t (0) to highes (100). “No opinion’ disregarded, (foi results, see Table 3) What does this politician’s party affiliation and state is given. For the politicians in question, I used the politicans tions: (see Table 2) Mr. Luciano was my elementary school teacher, Robert Griggs was my next- the result; are interest' n g Congratulations McCain, for a Republican Arizona, top the charts. However, notice a string eight Democrats fol lowed by seven Republicans as the we Politic mi Approval John McCain R-/5Z 57 ; Johnfjdwards D-NC 54 John Kerry D-MA 52 Mike Easley D-NC 50 Ronald Luciano D-NC 48 Jo so|j li Til omiJ so n D-NC 48 Zell Miller D- GA 46 Erskine DoMes D-NC 45 Hillaiy Clinton D- NY 42 Buddy Taylor R-NC 42 Robei't Griggs R-NC 41 Eli^heth Dole R-NC 40 Richard Burr R-NC 36 Lincoln Chafee R-RI 36 Dick Cheney R-WY 31 George Bush R-TX 27 George W. Bush □ Strongly Disapprove □ Disapprove □ Neutral □ Approve □ Strongly Approve □ No Opinion
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