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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[SealyStar]

The electorate at work.

I choose to believe Ukraine is in Alaska.

[Lord Shonus]

Even if you don't ignore obvious troll answers (such as every single answer in North America), the clustering isn't really that bad, viewed in a geopolitical context. The vast majority of answers are either in very close proximity to the Ukraine, in Western Russia (these are likely the older respondents who remember that giant blob as the Soviet Union, and remembering that the Ukraine was along the western edge), or just across the southern border instead of the western one. In other words, the vast majority believe that the crisis is happening in the central region of Europe. This is correct, even if many were off in the strict technical sense. It's not really that different from Europeans who think all of the US is California or Texas.

[Descan]

Then again: Greenland.

The ones in the steppes are also a little weird, what's up with Kazakhstan? I GUESS it kind of vaguely looks like Ukraine, and if all you'd seen recently were isolated maps of Ukraine, the big country that looks sort of how you remember that funny lookin' country being will pop out more than the similar one bundled up with a whole lot of other countries. Still a little strange though!

[Culise]

Then again: Greenland.

The ones in the steppes are also a little weird, what's up with Kazakhstan? I GUESS it kind of vaguely looks like Ukraine, and if all you'd seen recently were isolated maps of Ukraine, the big country that looks sort of how you remember that funny lookin' country being will pop out more than the similar one bundled up with a whole lot of other countries. Still a little strange though!

Heh, at least Kazakhstan does have a sizable Russian minority.  I suppose that's a step up on some of the other guesses in Asia.  I mean, Pakistan and Nepal?

[SealyStar]

Then again: Greenland.

The ones in the steppes are also a little weird, what's up with Kazakhstan? I GUESS it kind of vaguely looks like Ukraine, and if all you'd seen recently were isolated maps of Ukraine, the big country that looks sort of how you remember that funny lookin' country being will pop out more than the similar one bundled up with a whole lot of other countries. Still a little strange though!

Heh, at least Kazakhstan does have a sizable Russian minority.  I suppose that's a step up on some of the other guesses in Asia.  I mean, Pakistan and Nepal?

Australia!

[misko27]

Ukraine is in Kansas morons, get your facts straight.

[Frumple]

Let it never be said that the average american knows or gives a damn about the geography of anywhere outside the united states. Honestly, it's less important to folks who have an area roughly the size of some continents (*cougheuropecough*) where they know they can go pretty much anywhere in and largely have little to no difficulty settling in. Who cares where Ohio actually is if driving into it and living there isn't really all that different from living anywhere else (in the places you care to go for any extended period, heh.)?

I guess if you wanted to actually reach that place specifically it would be an issue (Ha, google maps says otherwise~), but being able to just randomly drive for several hundred miles, stop, get out, buy property and kick back for the next decade without worry about silly things like language or major cultural shifts or being in another country just... devalues the importance of geography, y'know?

[RedKing]

I'm more concerned abut the 14 people who clicked out in random areas of open water. What, do they think Ukraine is the Merfolk Kingdom? 

@frumple: The "Americans suck at geography because America is so damn big" argument only goes so far with me. That said, American parochialism can be jaw-dropping even in this day and age. I used to work with a guy (in the IT field, no less) who had never left North Carolina, had only ever lived in one county (Johnston), and only ever traveled to five other counties out of 100 (Wake, where we worked; and four other counties that formed a corridor to the beach). Dude was in his late 20s.

There are a not insignificant number of Americans who still, in this day and age, never really travel more than 20-30 miles from home. I can understand this to some extent with older generations. My grandfather had been to Brazil and Senegal during the war, and considering he picked up malaria and sleeping sickness while there, he really didn't have a desire to travel abroad again. But he was an avid traveler inside the US, and a truck driver by trade. So the man knew US geography pretty damn well. (It was a running joke that every time I visited, the conversation would invariably lead to us pulling out a road atlas to answer a debate over the best route to get from point A to point B.)

But he probably couldn't find Ukraine on a map, nor would he find it important. He would likely say that we should stay out of other countries' business and leave it at that. There's definitely a strong streak of isolationism that still informs many's attitudes about learning about the rest of the world.

There's also a streak of well-intentioned but horribly uninformed liberalism in the country too. I wonder how many people who got swept up in the whole Kony 2012 thing could find Uganda on a map? I couldn't help but notice that self-identified Democrats actually scored slightly worse than Republicans on this.

Perhaps we should have a law that war/armed intervention in another country should be by popular referendum, and voters have to also choose the country on a map digitally in the voting booth, with no cheat sheets.

Of course, then we'd wind up bombing Canada the next time Kim Jong Un does something....
"Well, it's NORTH Korea....and this country is north of the US....I think that's the US, right? And north is up? Man, politics is hard."

[mainiac]

I'm more concerned abut the 14 people who clicked out in random areas of open water. What, do they think Ukraine is the Merfolk Kingdom? 

More like they weren't giving any answer at all.

If I took a test about who people thought was going to win the next superbowl, and a large number of people answered the New York Yankees, would you conclude that they were ignorant?  Well maybe a couple of them.  But it seems more likely that trolling of the test or hostility towards the test administrator was to blame.  Maybe they have never heard of the superbowl or the New York Yankees but have no answer for that.

[TheDarkStar]

I'm more concerned abut the 14 people who clicked out in random areas of open water. What, do they think Ukraine is the Merfolk Kingdom? 

More like they weren't giving any answer at all.

If I took a test about who people thought was going to win the next superbowl, and a large number of people answered the New York Yankees, would you conclude that they were ignorant?  Well maybe a couple of them.  But it seems more likely that trolling of the test or hostility towards the test administrator was to blame.  Maybe they have never heard of the superbowl or the New York Yankees but have no answer for that.

I don't quite get what you're saying there. Do the yankees not play the sport that plays in the super bowl?

Relevant to the rest of your post: I'd guess that most of the people who guess somewhere near Russia are serious and most of the people who guess a significant distance away from Russia and Ukraine either are not serious or have no idea.

[Descan]

Quick google tells me Yankees are a baseball team, and IIRC Superbowl is American Rugby.

[mainiac]

I don't quite get what you're saying there. Do the yankees not play the sport that plays in the super bowl?

Yankees are a baseball team famous for massively outspending their opponents (although the dodgers are challenging this suddenly?) and thus winning a lot.

Superbowl is football.  And I mean the real football, you decadent non-american.

[MaximumZero]

Quick google tells me Yankees are a baseball team, and IIRC Superbowl is American Rugby.

Canada has football, man.

[Descan]

Quick google tells me Yankees are a baseball team, and IIRC Superbowl is American Rugby.

Canada has football, man.

And America has football too, but no one pays any attention to it.

[Dutchling]

Pretty sure Yankees is a hat brand.

Spoiler: Here you see the goldfish migrate from the Possesedbowl to the Superbowl (click to show/hide)