Truth Hurts

Panderbear was curious as to what correlation, if any, exists between recent poll standings of candidates for the Republican nomination and their Truth Quotient ratings. Does the truth hurt or help? In the graph both poll percentage and Truth Quotient are plotted for each candidate. Truth Quotients have been multiplied by 10, because they are so small compared to poll numbers.

Republican Voters Don't Reward Those Who Tell the Truth

Poll percentages (blue segmented line) decline steadily from left to right, because Panderbear ordered them that way. The Truth Quotients (green segmented line), however, displays a slight upward trend. This suggests an inverse relationship between truth-telling by a candidate and his or her popularity. Before we go too far down that road note that Jon Huntsman is an outlier. Were he not in the nomination race with his Republican voter-annoying habit of telling the truth, the remaining data points would show no particular trend up or down.

Panderbear concludes that either Republican voters who were polled do not know or do not particularly care which candidates are more truthful. The data support the proposition that Republicans polled by Gallop who expressed a preference represent an opinion demographic more interested in having its biases confirmed than in being informed by the truth. Panderbear is saddened by this result, but not surprised. Should Republicans ultimately nominate Ron Paul or Jon Huntsman they will be vindicated. Panderbear would be surprised if that happened.