September 17, 2004
From the desk of Jane Galt:Digging into the data
OpinionJournal notes that Maureen Dowd has broken a big story--but buried the lede:
From a comment by Maureen Dowd in a New York Times online forum on "women, the presidency and the election":
The latest CBS News poll shows that among George W. Bush supporters, 51 percent are men and 48 percent are women--and of John Kerry supporters, 41 percent are men and 43 percent are women. In the last election, out of those who voted for Al Gore, 42 percent were men and 54 percent were women. Of the people who voted for George W. Bush, 53 percent were men and 43 percent were women.
Hmm, let's put this into tabular form:
| 2004 Bush | 2004 Kerry | 2000 Bush | 2000 Gore | |
| Men | 51% | 41% | 53% |
42% |
| Women | 48% |
43% | 43% | 54% |
| Total | 99% | 84% |
96% | 96% |
This means that, if Dowd is right, 16% of Kerry supporters are neither men nor women. What are they? Perhaps she'll explain in a future column. But also note that only 1% of Bush's supporters belong to the mysterious third sex, down from 4% in 2000. If there really are voters who belong to neither sex, this could spell trouble for the incumbent.
Posted by Jane Galt at September 17, 2004 5:03 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links
Ok, let me take a guess at this: Transgender or transsexual.
Maybe the poll responders just didn't want to identify their gender. It's like, you know, sexist.
Obviously, Dowd spent her recent vacation at Area 51, Roswell, and the MIB HQ in New York. She's found out that we've increased quotas for Aliens moving to the US.
Applying Occam's razor, I conclude that Dowd is innumerate. Quick, send her the collected works of John Allen Paulos!
Ah, you've forgotten San Francisco. Take out results from the Bay Area and the numbers will add up to 100%.
What about the 4% persons of no gender voting for Bush? How does Bush feel about neuter/dual gender people marrying Box turtles?
The real story, which you ignored so that you could make a joke, is that fewer women support John Kerry than supported Al Gore. Al Gore lost, so John Kerry might lose by a wider margin.
The mysterious "third sex" seems to be those who choose not to identify to which of the normal two choices that they belong.
Or Dowd just screwed up (what are the odds?) and meant to say 43% "of women" voted for Bush in 2000 (which you know of course, and were just making a joke; I have no sense of humor. Really).
Perhaps we are dealing with involuntary shapechangers! ^_~
Unless I'm misreading what you're saying, you're committing some innumeracy here. The "84%" sum you got just says that roughly 84 out of 200 (assuming men and women are equal in number) voters support Kerry. For instance, if Bush had everybody's vote, the numbers would be "200%" for Bush, "0%" for Kerry. These aren't real percentages.
...or perhaps I'm misreading this, because it does seem unlike you to make such an error.
I think the following is a simple explanation for the difference; we do want to be inclusive. This may be the San Francisco connection to the Area 51 premise. Ms. Dowd may in fact be hinting at the asexual nature of Aliens.
"California Gov. Gray Davis was asked about his vision for the state, and this is how he responded:
"My vision is to make the most diverse state on earth, and we have people from every planet on the earth in this state. We have the sons and daughters of every, of people from every planet, of every country on earth."
Apparently the Aliens are now resident and can "legally" vote.
Link Source
http://www.politicalhumor.about.com/b/a/027651.htm
I was once shown a report where a PhD had "written" (actually, probably had an assistant write): 60% of participants (in some activity) were men. HOWEVER, 40% were women. We joked that that meant that activity (hunting, maybe?) was highly unpopular among the genderless. I guess John Kerry appeals to hermaphrodites and eunuchs.
I think it is obvious that
a) Maureen Dowd is an idiot
b) The poll actually probably found that Bush wins among men 51-41 and women 48-43 against Kerry, and won in 2000 53-42 among men and lost 43-54 among women (with the remaining 3-9% being "undecided", "other" or "Refused to answer" in each case.)
I think it is likely that Jane, most of the commenters, and basically everyone except Maureen Dowd realized what the mistake probably was.
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