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English: US Representative Michele Bachmann (R...

English: US Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minn) addressing a Tea Party Express rally outside the Minnesota state capital building. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

While down in Virginia, Keith Broward, a friend of Double Dip Politics, conducted another experiment examining how informed voters in a critical swing state are. Yesterday, we exposed the results of how popular President Obama’s actual record is amongst registered Republicans. Today, we pull back the curtain on a different non-scientific study we conducted.

This time, we spoke with 280 Tea Party members in Warrenton, Richmond, and Norfolk Virginia. The results were not surprising to us given the sordid history of the Tea Party and previous reporting.  

Keith visited several different events in August 2012 across Virginia. These events were publicized on Tea Party websites for Virginia affiliates. Each individual spoke with Keith of their own free will and without provocation.

Keith carried two photographs with him. One photograph was of former Tennessee Representative Harold Ford Jr. The other photograph was of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Ford is a famous African-American Democrat and a popular fixture on Sunday talk shows. Walker is a white Governor and recently survived a recall.

Any respondent who was able to identify either photo was disqualified from the results. Respondents were not told which party the photographed individuals belonged to.

Keith provided eight policies for the Tea Party members to select. Four were positions held by President Obama. Four were positions held by Mitt Romney. Respondents were asked to choose which fictional candidate was most likely to hold that position.

The eight positions were:

  1. Favors using more drone strikes to target terrorist cells and training camps. (Obama)
  2. Favors raising taxes on the middle class by over $2,500 for a family of four. (Romney)
  3. Is rated most Pro-Life by Catholic Church. (Obama)
  4. Believes milk is not a hazardous chemical. (Obama)
  5. Believes government should mandate health care choices. (Romney)
  6. Supports growing the national deficit by $1.3 trillion per year. (Romney)
  7. Believes banks are able to regulate themselves without rules. (Romney)
  8. Believes in states rights. (Obama)

To match up properly, Ford should be 1, 3, 4, 8, while Walker should be 2, 5, 6, 7.

Who received the most votes for each position?

  1. Walker
  2. Ford
  3. Walker
  4. Walker
  5. Ford
  6. Ford
  7. Walker
  8. Walker

The only question which received the correct answer was number 7. Favorable positions for the Republican base were attributed to the white person. Unfavorable positions were attributed to the African-American.

Keith ran a similar test with another 125 persons using the same positions and photographs. The only change was Walker’s photo carried the Democratic logo while Ford’s photo carried the Republican photo.

The results showed Tea Party voters had a harder time deciding positions, narrowing the gap. Walker was favored to hold positions 2, 5, and 6. Ford was favored to hold positions 1, 3, 4, 7, and 8. The Tea Party selected the positions currently held by President Obama based on party influence on the correct candidate. When it was racial preference,  the opposite candidate won.

Race and party affiliation appear to play a role in how people feel about particular candidates, even fictional ones. How significant a role, we cannot speculate.

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