How Knowledgeable Were McCain Voters on Election Day?

This is a rush transcript from "Hannity & Colmes," December 2, 2008. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Which party currently controls Congress?

ADARSHA, OBAMA VOTER: Um, currently? Like — I don't know, actually.

MELINDA, OBAMA VOTER: The Republican.

NICK, OBAMA VOTER: Republicans.

RONALD, OBAMA VOTER: Republican.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Republicans control Congress?

RONALD: Yes, yes.

JANAN, OBAMA VOTER: Probably Republican because the president is Republican. That's my honest answer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: Now that was a clip of "How Obama Got Elected" by documentary filmmaker John Ziegler. Now the idea came from a Zogby poll that was released before the election.

In his latest endeavor Ziegler examines how Barack Obama voters compare to McCain voters when it comes to politics and their candidate. Now as new poll found that McCain voters faired quite better than Obama voters. 35 percent of McCain voters got 10 or more of the 13 questions correct versus only 18 percent of Obama voters.

Now when it came to question of congressional control, the majority of people who got it correct were McCain voters and, well, the majority who got it incorrect they cast their vote, once again, for Obama.

Joining us now documentary filmmaker and producer of "Blocking the Path to 9/11" and creator of HowObamaGotElected.com, John Ziegler is with us.

John, welcome back. Glad you're with us.

• Video: Watch the Sean & Alan's interview

JOHN ZIEGLER, HOWOBAMAGOTELECTED.COM: Thank you, Sean, appreciate it.

HANNITY: All right. First of all, not to toot our own horn here, but you also, you know, talk about networks. For example, you know, those people — those exposed to the FOX News Channel had the highest numbers in answering, you know, the congressional-control question. 3 to 1 compared to CNN and twice the number of those people that get tingly feelings at some NBC network, right?

ZIEGLER: Well, Sean, it's important to keep in mind that the MSNBC numbers because of the small number of people in their audience may not be indicative of the larger population. It's harder to get a good sample size with MSNBC viewers for understandable reasons.

HANNITY: All right. You're very welcome on FOX News for that comment. Thank you for that comment. All right.

ZIEGLER: But here's the important point, Sean.

HANNITY: Yes.

ZIEGLER: It's important to keep in mind that this all began with the video that you just played for a documentary I'm doing about the media coverage of this election. I then commissioned the Zogby Poll and people like Alan Colmes said to me two weeks ago on this program, hey, what about McCain voters?

• Video: Watch Ziegler's Nov. 17 appearance on 'Hannity & Colmes'

Well, the reason why we only did Obama voters, I don't know if you've heard, but Obama won the election. I'm trying to figure out how the media coverage impacted the winner of the election.

HANNITY: Right.

ZIEGLER: Therefore I only focused on Obama voters. So this time we decided let's show the real story here, how did the McCain voters do?

HANNITY: All right. This.

ZIEGLER: And the results are astonishing.

HANNITY: The tape is astonishing. And here's what's frustrating to me. And you asked specific questions, for example, about what people knew about Bill Ayers, you know, and who they voted for, the coal power plant comments.

And these were really significant issues. And it seems that Obama voters, if you don't listen to talk radio, if you don't watch the FOX News Channel, you are not anywhere nearly as informed as people that are just hearing the bumper stickers, the slogans, the snippets of the commercials of the media so, journalism died in 2008, and it influenced a lot of people on the way out.

ZIEGLER: That's exactly right. This poll, and you can see the full results at HowObamaGotElected.com as well as the video you're referring to proves this in no uncertain terms.

ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: So what you're saying.

ZIEGLER: … with unambiguous questions.

COLMES: What you're saying, John, is that if McCain won, you would have done the same exact thing if he was the winner, how the media had an influence on McCain winning? Is that your point?

ZIEGLER: Alan, why would that matter to — why do we focus on the results.

COLMES: Because you said you only did it because Obama won.

ZIEGLER: The results are what you don't want to talk about.

COLMES: So if McCain won you would have done the reverse.

ZIEGLER: Wait a minute. If I thought there was massive amount of media induced ignorance, absolutely I would. Anyone that cares about democracy in this country ought to care about whether the public is informed.

COLMES: Was it media that elected George W. Bush?

ZIEGLER: No, actually, the media tried very hard not to elect George W. Bush.

COLMES: I see.

ZIEGLER: There's an awfully lot of proof of that.

COLMES: So when a Democrat wins the media does it.

ZIEGLER: But what we saw in this past election.

COLMES: ... and when the Republican wins it's the will of the people.

ZIEGLER: Wait a minute. Who wins is irrelevant to the nature of the media coverage.

COLMES: I see.

ZIEGLER: Bush would have won 65-35 with fair coverage in 2004. And Obama had no.

COLMES: In 2000 he actually lost the popular vote. But let me ask you this. One of the questions you had was about the Keating scandal and 58 percent of McCain voters got that wrong.

ZIEGLER: Right.

COLMES: Doesn't that only show that if you're inclined toward a particular candidate, you're not going to believe negative stuff about that candidate. Isn't that what that proves?

ZIEGLER: That is — absolutely. That was one of the things that we found in this poll. And I — and we put that in the press release that's going to come out tomorrow at HowObamaGotElected.com to be fair to everybody.

This is not about showing whether McCain voters or Obama voters are smarter or more or less ignorant. It's about the media coverage that they got.

COLMES: You're blaming.

ZIEGLER: … and the two different worlds in which they live.

COLMES: Eventually you're saying that Obama voters rather than looking at things objectively, drank left-wing media Kool-Aid. That's the point you're trying to make.

ZIEGLER: I think you said it well there, Alan.

COLMES: Isn't it?

ZIEGLER: Yes.

COLMES: 23 percent.

ZIEGLER: Exactly right. And I think you were one of those Kool-Aid drinkers.

COLMES: Kool-Aid is great sometimes, by the way, with a little Spritz.

HANNITY: John, that's.

COLMES: 23 percent of Texans are convinced that Democratic presidential nominee Obama is a Muslim. What does that tell about people listening to what they hear in the media? In that case the conservative media.

ZIEGLER: Well — actually, Alan if you look at his history in Indonesia he was registered as a Muslim. That's a rational answer even though he's not today.

COLMES: Do you believe he's a Muslim?

ZIEGLER: No, I don't think he's a Muslim. But I don't know.

COLMES: But 23 percent of Texans did. What does that tell you?

ZIEGLER: How is that relevant to this discussion?

COLMES: It's because you're talking about people buying what they see in the media. I got — we got to run. I thank you, John.

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