# Charlie, a Gallup poll and... Republican conspiracy?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-a-gallup-poll-and-republican-conspiracy/485594>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [February 12, 2009, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-a-gallup-poll-and-republican-conspiracy/485594 "2009-02-12T21:12:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\
**Post date:** [February 16, 2009, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-a-gallup-poll-and-republican-conspiracy/485594/21 "2009-02-16T08:03:51Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> **Locrian** : CA’s education has been in a downpour since before I moved here 11 years ago.

And they still beat out most of the country. On the most recent measure of individual high schools in the United States (based on AP test scores), California ranked fourth behind Massachusetts, Connecticut and another New England state. If I remember correctly, almost twenty percent of the top 100 schools were in California.

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**Author:** ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)\
**Post date:** [February 16, 2009, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charlie-a-gallup-poll-and-republican-conspiracy/485594/22 "2009-02-16T09:21:26Z")

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> [@](#):
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> Originally Posted by Mach Tuck \*  
> Stipulating for the moment that many of the SDMB are liberal, what makes us collectively “elite”?
> 
> Is it just that we are affluent enough to have internet access and time to read the SDMB?

> [@Sage\_Rat](#):
>
> Essentially. People who have the education and free time to sit around debating morality, economics, and sociology of issues are going to be the leaders of the intellectual foundation of the party, even though the true following of those beliefs becomes diluted the further out from that core you get.\*

So are people who are affluent enough to have internet access and spend their time on message boards debating home run stats and football scores NOT elitist? The problem isn’t that a group of Americans have the time to sit around debating great questions - it’s that most Americans have time to sit around debating ANYTHING. and EVERYTHING. The ‘Elitists’ just spend their time debating things that actually MATTER.

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