Fat Headed Voters?

James Joyner · Tuesday, June 8, 2004 · 2 Comments

Ogged links a correlation graph showing that, as obesity level increased, so did propensity to vote Republican in 2000. As Kevin Drum notes, “Yes, yes, I know there’s an underlying cause. Probably income, or socioeconomic level, or something. But still. Weird.”

Weird indeed. Of course, since these are self-reported data and we’re talking about the 2000 election, it may simply be that a lot of Democrats –especially in certain parts of Florida– didn’t understand the question.

FILED UNDER: Health, Humor, US Politics

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About James Joyner
James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. Follow James on Twitter.

Comments

Rich Gardner says:

Wednesday, June 9, 2004 at 00:03

Er, anyone note that the correlation graph came off a French website? Not that that means anything.

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Steve says:

Wednesday, June 9, 2004 at 10:08

Or that the correlation is completely spurious. With all the data out there, and all the people downloading it and looking at it, we are bound to get some bogus correlations that are statistically significant.

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