Republican New Zealand  

Posted by Ryan Sproull in , ,


Kum Fac'e

If the World Could Vote is one of those sites that tell us what everyone supposedly already knows. In this case, it's that the whole world would rather have Obama as president of the US than have McCain. It's not a new trend. After the 2004 election, there was a spate of sites featuring Americans apologising to the rest of the world for the results. There was even a bag company that included an apology in their exports to France.

In general, the developed world is to the left of US politics. Up and to the left, if you add an axis representing, say, literacy or education. And you'd expect New Zealand to follow that same trend. But here's the curious thing. New Zealand is one of the few countries that favour McCain over Obama.

In his, we join Thailand (96% McCain), Venezuela (100% McCain) and Kenya at 100% McCain, which presumably says more about Venezuelans and Kenyans who have the money to afford a computer that anything else.

And that's it. Human-rights paradises Israel and Indonesia are split down the middle. Israel's split probably shows, more than anything, the level of education of Israelis, as they've apparently seen through the Republican spin that Obama wants to single-handedly destroy their country. Haaretz, a particularly good Israeli newspaper, commented on this even before Obama had finalised the nomination, in an interesting editorial. Probably more on that later, as the Obama smears are downright fascinating (as is Obama's response to them.)

So, why are online Kiwis more in favour of McCain than Obama? It's not a huge majority - 55% - but it stands out in contrast against the votes of other Western countries (Australia around 90% Obama, UK 92% Obama, etc.) Any simple answer is likely to be simplistic, but there has to be something to explain the anomaly. I doubt it's a matter of racism, since our neighbourly International Home of Racism is sitting at 90% Obama.

I'm not going to speculate on it further - I'm more likely to chat about it on Thursday's Wire show on bFM, around 1.30pm. But someone with their finger more firmly on the pulse might have some suggestions.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 25 at Wednesday, June 25, 2008 and is filed under , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed .

10 thoughts

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that at the bottom of the page it declares: "You are from Australia".

Could just be a big-ol' technical issue :)

5:04 PM, June 25, 2008

Mine said New Zealand, but yeah, that's not a particularly accurate way to make something like that happen.

5:08 PM, June 25, 2008

Also, the sample size appears to be fairly puny, given that it's the entire world we're modeling here. A smidge over 7000 votes in total.

It's not hard to believe that Kenya, for instance, would only be represented by one or two votes on that page which might explain a lot of the 100%'s you see...

5:12 PM, June 25, 2008

It's a teeny tiny sample. Don't let the decimal point fool you as to its precision.

It's currently sitting on 7000 votes, from 72 countries. So, it's not likely to be many more than a hundred or two votes from New Zealand. So, the disparity is only a few dozen people - easily few enough to just be the result of a link on a right-wing blog or two.

So, not very precise. But accurate? I don't know.

5:14 PM, June 25, 2008

Heh. Chris bet me to it.

5:15 PM, June 25, 2008

Well, we'll see if those change as the sample size grows, but the fact remains that there is quite a specific anomaly here. The sample size is likely to be a problem for the less developed 100%ers like Kenya, but New Zealand is still so far out of sync with the others. I'll check it again in a few weeks and see.

5:22 PM, June 25, 2008

As of 14 June:
New Zealand 32.4% - 67.6%
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2030599/posts?page=78

5:33 PM, June 25, 2008

As for sample size, if you've had more that a couple of people from here clicking for obama (you've had one) then it hasn't made a big dent.

Of course, how your sample is selected is also improtant.

5:35 PM, June 25, 2008

It's just not a meaningful poll. The land that elected Chavez is 100% in favour of McCain. Come on.

I did a bit of googling though, and there doesn't seem to be a New Zealand blog linking to the site other than this one. My initial though was Whale Oil or someone like that linked to it, but as far as I can tell that's not the case. There are a few US blogs along the line of 'wtf NZ?' however. So, a mystery.

12:46 AM, June 26, 2008

I'm not hugely surprised by the Chavez/Venezuela thing. You'll find the same thing with anyone from Latin America travelling overseas. "What do you think of Chavez?" "He's awful!" Well, yes, but of course the very people who have the money to travel around the world are precisely the minority of Venezuelans who would benefit more from a less egalitarian government.

3:17 PM, June 26, 2008

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