My head has shaken too much. OK, I say the following as:
A. A US voter who didn’t support or vote for either choice
B. A moderator who understands the rules and will not be debating the politics of the poll, but rather it’s implications and relevance
570,000 people voted who they would have preferred for president? This poll had several sketchy parameters:
A. It was not scientific. It was a polling of all the online readers of MSN. I don’t care if you support Obama, that’s not really being honest about wanting an intellectual answer to “Who does the world support? Which candidate?”
B. 36 Countries = The entire planet? Also, consider “the entire planet” is just the online readership of MSN. I could just as easily garner enough international supporters of “clean energy,” poll them, and then state I had found “The Entire Planet” supports one candidate or another. They all have something in common, it must be an accurate data collection! No.
C. Somehow, the “Middle East’s” support for Obama doesn’t bother anyone and China’s support for Romney does? And you can’t use the argument, “The people support us, the rulers do not.” I could use the same argument with China, and considering China’s development and broad access to the internet compared to the Middle East, I would probably have the better argument.
D. The “thoughts” of one MSN China affiliate represents the viewership of China? Did she poll these people, ask them questions? She doesn’t even say, it just says, “what she thought.”
There is no reason anyone should trust this poll as accurate in correctly predicting who the “world” supports (a terribly obtuse claim), and also explaining why the same “world” voted for one candidate or another. Remember, I am merely talking about the validity of this poll, not generalizations about how world politics are, etc.
GG