October 26, 2004
IS IT TOO LATE TO CHANGE THE VOTING AGE?
Weekly Reader kids select Bush in poll (MSN KIDZ, October 26th, 2004)
The students who read Weekly Reader's magazines have made their preference for president known: they want to send President Bush back to the White House.The results of this year's Weekly Reader poll have just been announced, and the winner is President Bush. Hundreds of thousands of students participated, giving the Republican president more than 60% of the votes cast and making him a decisive choice over Democratic Senator John Kerry.
Since 1956, Weekly Reader students in grades 1-12 have correctly picked the president, making the Weekly Reader poll one of the most accurate predictors of presidential outcomes in history.
Posted by Peter Burnet at October 26, 2004 5:06 AM
The general trend is that up to the age of about 14 or 15, ask a child a question about politics and he will repeat the opinion of his parents.
From about 15 to 21, he will say the precise opposite of his parents.
After that, he will revert back to the original position.
Based on this theory, I suppose that young children are a pretty good indicator of overall political trends.
Posted by: Brit at October 26, 2004 5:42 AMMy only question is what problem did the little urchins have with Eisenhower on the first go around? The 1952 contingent must have been the forerunners of the 60's generation.
Posted by: h-man at October 26, 2004 6:28 AMThere was another election in addition to Eisenhower's that the kiddies got wrong. I can't remember which one.
Posted by: John J. Coupal at October 26, 2004 7:50 AMApparently John Kerry won in a similar poll on Nickelodeon. The article I read bragged about how that poll tended to choose the correct president, too. Hm...
Posted by: H. Ratliff at October 26, 2004 8:42 AMBased on the reports of Democratic voter intimidation efforts at early voting sites in Florida, if Terry McAuliffe had been on his toes, he would have started a "Bullies for Kerry" effort that would have given elementary campus delinquents some walking around money in exchange for intimidating their classmates into voting the proper way in the Weekly Reader poll.
Posted by: John at October 26, 2004 8:43 AMI don't think Nickleodeon was around in the 40's.
Posted by: M Ali Choudhury at October 26, 2004 9:26 AMWe voted in the Nick poll and discovered that we could vote multiple times from the same address. That being said, no online polling should be trusted. I think we've seen that clearly based on the post-debate polls.
Besides, Linda freakin' Ellerbee runs the Nick news segments. Talk about indoctrination. The kids don't want to watch it in our house because it's always followed by a passionate lecture on the facts from mom. Boooooorrrrring.
Posted by: NKR at October 26, 2004 10:37 AMI think the Weekly Reader missed 1992 as well.
Posted by: jim hamlen at October 26, 2004 10:38 AMI voted for Carter in 1980 when I was in the fifth grade. It took me until oh about 9-11-2001 to come around.
Posted by: Jason Johnson at October 26, 2004 12:54 PMIn 1992, my grade school voted Clinton behind Perot.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at October 26, 2004 12:56 PMIn 1992, a lot of people figured Clinton behind Perot. My parents were Perotistas; I remember visiting them and getting high-pressured to accept Ross Perot as My Personal LORD and Savior the entire time I was there.
I still remember a lot of the WITNESSING!
"He'll be Our Leader! He has The Plan! Everything will be perfect! No more filthy Mexicans! No more filthy slant-eyed Orientals! Everything will be Perfect Forevermore!"
(Eins Volk,
Eins Reich,
Eins Fuehrer!
Eins Volk,
Eins Reich,
Eins Fuehrer...)
The Nickelodeon poll was available on line and could be hacked, multiple voted or botted. Weekley reader, Scholastic and Channel One were all in school and aimed at younger age groups. Those polls all went Bush.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at October 26, 2004 2:47 PM