[Superman]

I've done some statistics though I am not a mathematician. One day while waiting to testify in a hearing I heard an attorney ask a statistician, who happened to also be my prof at the time, "Dr. Ott, in your opinion, do statistics lie?" Dr. Ott looked at the ceiling as though he had never considered this question before then carefully lowered his gaze and made the perfect response. "No."

You see, numbers are our slaves. The statistics themselves are 100% accurate in a sense. The to major problem sources are 1) whether your data is clean and 2) whether your interpretation of the results is faithful. Estimating proportions is a matter of sample size (of course), degree of confidence you target and the population's characteristics (small proportions are more difficult to quantify/estimate).

In the instant case, it may be that the respondents' perception of the question(s) they were asked left freedom to reject both parties. It looks like it. I infer that respondents felt free to reject either or both parties in favor of "Independent." Had this option not been available, who knows how many of those "Independents" would have chosen a "D" or and "R" response.

And quite frankly, I am not surprised that the remaining "D' responses outnumbered the "R" responses. For perhaps several reasons:

1) "R" people consider themselves very independent and that has resulted in some trafficking between stated parties. That is, the Republican Party has managed (to their credit) to capture many independents in recent elections. There seems to be a rather fickle group out there that the Republican Party has called its own recently that do not actually belong to them in a permanent sense.

2) The Republican Party is the easiest party to hate today. For at least two reasons. First, be careful what you wish for. Your party is in power now, and that carries responsibility and blame. Whether it is their fault or not, Republicans are currently responsible for running the show. And the show is not going well....at least not in the minds of folks who are open to the facts and who are independent thinkers.

3) Whether you like it or not, this new development where the Republican Party is in control is just that....new. Until recently, this nation had more stated Democrats than Republicans. When that happens again (soon, I suspect) Mul's debasement of Democrats will be treachery. We will see his lack of patriotism, I suspect.