Just checking

[nancylebov]

I recently heard second-hand that there were people who voted for GWB because they thought he was his father. Some of them were pleased that he was looking so much better.

I have no reason to doubt my source-- I'm just sufficiently surprised that I want to do some double-checking.

Do you know any people who had that confusion?

In the interest of pre-empting the most obvious joke, let's assume that the first comment is "You mean he wasn't?"

Comments

[venturous]

**headdesk**
I think I have a terrible prejudice against stupid people, because I just want to poison them all.

[nancylebov]

I'm trying to sort out how common that one might be. It's conceivable that the source somehow ran into a very rare cluster.

[adrian_turtle]

I would like to believe that your source was deceived by a joker with an exceptionally straight face.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

Never heard that one before. But out of the tens of millions who voted for him I'd be surprised if there weren't a thousand who fell into that category.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

And how many who still hadn't realised the second time around? ;^b

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

The people I know are generally better informed than that. I wouldn't be surprised if it were true, but I also wouldn't be surprised to learn that there was a roughly equal number who voted for his opponent(s) because they thought that GWB was a lizard person out to take over the world.

[madfilkentist]

I don't know how you'd check a claim like that, even if all you need is an existence proof. Anyone who voted that way and later realized it was a mistake would probably be too embarrassed to admit it. You might find a very small number who claim they did, but they might be joking.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

You'd just need people who just talked about why they made their political choices, as a lot of people do.

[bradhicks.livejournal.com]

I haven't run into any, but I tend to run with a better-informed crowd than the average. What I have run into was several people who assumed that he would govern the same way his father did, roughly a third of whom were disappointed.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

The interesting thing about that is that I have always been told that if a US politician loses an election they're politically dead, they can't try again the way they can in a parliamentary system. Those people who voted for W thinking he was HW had not got this memo.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

.... Uh, no, you can keep going over and over again, forever. Richard Nixon lost against John Kennedy in 1960 before getting elected in 1968. I would have to look it up for details but one of the early Presidents was a many-time loser before getting elected. Thomas Jefferson lost his first time.

Now, making a terrible showing and getting *trounced* tends to mean that your lousy showing will be brought up the next time, and your party might not pay for you to try again, but that's different.

Oh man. If losing an election meant you couldn't try again, the political landscape would be much cleaner - and, hey, we wouldn't hear from Alan Keyes or Dick Santorum every two years.

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

Nope, never heard that one before. Weirder things have been true, though.