One of the nicest things about having done The Israel Factor for six years is the ability to find ancient data that still has relevancy today.
A couple of days ago, sorting through old surveys of the Factor, I found this survey, from January of 2007. It includes a comparison between two then relatively unknown candidates – Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.
Take a look, the ranking is from 1 (low) to 5 (high), and our stated intention was to identify why both candidates weren’t doing very well with our panel:
Three quick comments:
1. The skin color and the religion of the candidate would still not matter today. And I suspect that the panel might state that it is not yet sure about the “true stance” of both Obama and Romney. Don’t tell the panelists, but I’m going to try and resend them this table of questions next month to see what they say.
2. Clearly, the panel today trusts Romney much more than it did back in 2007. In our February 2012 survey, the panel gave Romney 7.5 (out of 10) on the “Israel can trust his support” statement (Obama was 6.25).
3. At the bottom line, maybe not much had changed since 2007. When we asked the panel to vote for the candidates in a head to head match, Romney was on top in 2007, as he is (if barely) today: with a score of 3 (out of 5) to Romney, and 2.63 to Obama.
