Read a Pacific Northwest, liberal perspective on world, national, and local politics. From majestic Redmond, Washington - the Northwest Progressive Institute Advocate.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Are you smarter than your elected officials?

Odds are, yes.

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute has released a report in which they detail the results of giving a 33 question Civics quiz, multiple choice, to 2,508 Americans. As part of the survey, the ISI asked respondents a bunch of demographic questions, including whether or not the person had ever been elected to a public office.

Overall, 71% of respondents failed the quiz with an average score among all participants of just 49%. That sucks, America. Even more pathetic, the 168 respondents who indicated that they had ever held public office scored just 44% on average. Meaning that even your dumb-as-a-sack-of-hammers neighbor--the one who could more readily identify Paula Abdul as a judge on American Idol than the immortal words "government of the people, by the people, for the people" as part of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address--would do marginally better at running a government according our nation's founding principles than an average elected official.

We're not doing a good job, folks, of electing smart people to serve in government.

I was all set to blame the failing school system, until I looked in the cross-tabs and saw that age made no difference. Young and old alike both scored 46%. The results are remarkably similar across nearly all demographic lines. Liberals and conservatives scored within one percent of each other on average, a statisitcally meaningless difference. Church-goers marginally under performed non-church goers, 48% to 50%.

The only metric that seems to matter much is money: people making $100,000 or more did 9 points better than those making only $30,000 to $50,000, 55% to 46%. I guess if you have money, you have time to follow the news and stuff.

The best part: the ISI has put their quiz online, so you can see how you stack up!

For the record, I got a 96. Clearly, I'm not cut out for politics.

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