I wouldn't get too hopeful in people....a lot of people voted for him "Just because he's black."
It would be nice to have a candidate that people vote for because they agree with his values and his positions on political issues....most people who I met that voted for Obama didn't know (or care) what his political positions were, but thought "It'd be cool to have a black president."
If people had paid attention, they'd have realized that Ron Paul was the candidate that would have been best for the US.
I thought your post was tongue in cheek then I got to the Ron Paul part and realized you were actually serious.
This latest election was the first time in my voting life I was actually kind of proud of the country I had no choice in being born in.
As for the OP, I have certainly seen some things that seemed unlikely, but people just get things wrong more often than not when they assume the odds of something: from fearing spiders and snakes when we should actually be terrified of driving; worry more about teens smoking pot than playing sports (0 deaths from marijuana, 16 deaths in 2006 from football alone); choose "natural" products over "unnatural" (in California a town chose a natural mosquito repellant made of chrysanthemums despite the artificial repellant being far less toxic and damaging to the environment). And on and on....
It's like the bar stunt of the odds of a shared b-day: in a group of 30 people the odds of having the same b-day are extremely likely despite the human brain finding the likelihood slim:
Probability in a group of n people that 2 or more have the same birthday:
10 0.117
20 0.411
22 0.476
23 0.507
30 0.706
40 0.891
50 0.970
Our brains are notorious pattern seekers and impose such on events that are not particularly unusual considering the odds. Obama's name doesn't come as much of a surprise at all since it's fairly common.
