Although it does appear they’re willing to share them.
Click on the key to see the breakdown by colour scheme. Fairly certain outcome, but then The Economist has a left-leaning readership. As a magazine which has previously described itself as socially liberal, what was the point of this? Proving that its readership shares its views?
Breaking down the votes country by country, its little surprise that 100% of Indonesians involved in the poll have voted for Obama. But the high number of Chinese and Indian votes are extremely suspect. Its a popular UK magazine where, the editor once disclosed, a big chunk of its readership is in the US. Yet somehow almost 2000 people in both China (where the magazine is frequently banned for criticising the government) and India have voted, far, far more than either the UK or the US. Of course China and India are countries with extremely large populations, but to have grossly disproprortionate numbers of voters in this poll in each country suggests that the voting for each country is seriously flawed. It is easy enough to mess up.
What is the point of doing something which is so easily distorted and so forseeably distorted, for a magazine which otherwise has an impeccable reputation for credibility?
As a gag which will raise eyebrows amongst The Economist’s readership and prove the point, we should all vote for McCain and say we are from Oman. With only 4 votes so far, we can make this little patch of the Middle East bright GOP red, the only country which would be red so far. (Incidentally, if I was an American, I would vote for Obama: that’s not the point.)
I hadn’t realized the rest of the world had joined the US! That’s interesting news. And the fact that they are overwhelmingly Democrats and want Obama is…well, shocking! I’m shocked…SHOCKED…that McCain isn’t doing better world wide.
Looks like it’s going to be an Obama landslide! Look at some of those numbers…and in really high population places like China and India. I think McCain should just concede now…
I added my vote a couple of days ago, when I got the “What’s New” email from economist.com.
I was surprised by his popularity, but I shouldn’t have been…the article linking to the vote states: “So cast your vote and then keep an eye on the results to test the theory that, if the world could choose, Barack Obama would stroll into the White House.”
Not like a die-hard McCain fan would be rushing to join after that lead-in.
But liberal in the European sense. Americans would probably call them libertarian. The editors are strongly for free markets and minimal governmental interference in social issues.
That makes sense. On a board based in the US in a thread about the US election to use the “original definition”. One that has absolutely no resemblence to the modern American use of the term Liberal. There is another guy around here who does that, we laugh at him too.
Seriously, I didn’t think anyone could top PETA’s breast milk ice cream proposal for stupidity, but this pretty well qualifies.
On the flip side, here’s an opportunity for Americans to vote in Tony Blair to be Poodle For Life!
*If you read this as “knocked up”, you are a pervert.
I’m not American, I used the term as I know it. Should I write aluminum instead of aluminium too?
And frankly, the American definition of liberal is an incoherent scare word, so I wouldn’t use it even if I gave a shit about adjusting my language to help poor Americans.
Quite. They’re trying to build up their online community; it’s just something to get people talking. Yeah, the result is a foregone conclusion, but so what? Honestly, some of youse take stuff far, far too seriously.