ץ A Poll: Republicans Know More About Democratic Candidates than Democrats Do. Mr. Taranto of the Wall Street Journal reports on a Gallup poll that showed that Republicans were more likely to hear of a given Democratic candidate for President than a Democrat was.

Strangers on a Train Wreck
Here's a fascinating tidbit from this week's CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll. The following table shows the proportion of "Republicans/Republican leaners" and "Democrats/Democratic leaners" who said they'd "never heard of" each of the Democratic presidential candidates:

Candidate Reps Dems
Clark
17%
22%
Dean
14%
17%
Edwards
25%
28%
Gephardt
14%
21%
Kerry
18%
20%
Lieberman
7%
11%
For the most part these differences aren't huge, but it's nonetheless striking that in every case, Republicans were more likely than Democrats to have heard of the Democratic candidates--especially since Dems are in a position to vote on these guys in the next few months. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that people who are more informed about politics tend to be Republicans.

[ http://php.indiana.edu/~erasmuse/w/04.01.13a.htm . erasmusen@yahoo.com. ]

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