A study from my alma mater (please don’t call Chucky the “Husky Blogger”), the University of Washington, is being trumpeted by the MSM as proof that tea partiers are racists. The study, such as it is, is pretty straightforward. They did a poll.

Led by Prof. Christopher Parker, the 2010 Multi-state Survey of Race & Politics examines what Americans think about the issues of race, public policy, national politics, and President Obama, one year after the inaugurationof the first African American president.

The survey is drawn from a probability sample of 1006 cases, stratified by state. The Multi-State Survey of Race and Politics included seven states, six of which were battleground states in 2008. It includes Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, and Ohio as the battleground states. For its diversity and its status as an uncontested state, California was also included for comparative purposes. The study, conducted by the Center for Survey Research at the University of Washington, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent and was in the field February 8 – March 15, 2010.

Sounds all scientific and all that stuff. As a poll, there are a lot of questions (most of which don’t have good answers), but Newsweek decided to focus in on this:

For instance, respondents were asked whether they agreed with various characterizations of different racial groups. Only 35 percent of those who strongly approve of the tea party agreed that blacks are hardworking, compared with 55 percent of those who strongly disapprove of the tea party. On whether blacks were intelligent, 45 percent of the tea-party supporters agreed, compared with 59 percent of the tea-party opponents. And on the issue of whether blacks were trustworthy, 41 percent of the tea-party supporters agreed, compared with 57 percent of the tea-party opponents.

That’s proof of a higher incidence of racist attitudes, right?

Not so fast. Science isn’t just about asking dumb questions and getting dumb answers. When a survey is involved, you also have to ask why people would chose to answer a question a certain way. I propose an alternate theory: Tea Partiers are more honest.

The heavy hand of political correctness can make people say things that they don’t really mean, and those differences are completely explicable by a candor gap. They haven’t really proven anything in particular as far as root cause is concerned.

But that doesn’t prevent Newsweek from plastering this headline on the article:

New Poll Finds Tea Partiers Have More Racist Attitudes

Sloppy, or liars? You decide.

And to be clear, my criticism is directed mostly at Newsweek. The study itself seems to have been carried out using pretty standard methodology, and that conclusion wasn’t drawn in prominently in the study. It seemed to be implied though (after all, why do the study otherwise), and the questions themselves were designed to lead to this conclusion.

I also have some very specific criticism in the presentation of the  report itself. In the section “Is America Now A Post-Racial Society?”, there is nothing in the link that talks about intelligence, and yet in the body of the summary, they state that

Of those, only 35% believe Blacks to be hardworking, only 45 % believe Blacks are intelligent, and only 41% think that Blacks are trustworthy. Perceptions of Latinos aren’t much different. While 54% of White Tea Party supporters believe Latinos to be hardworking, only 44% think them intelligent, and even fewer, 42% of Tea Party supporters believe Latinos to be trustworthy

This doesn’t tell you squat without also talking about how the general public answers these questions. The most charitable conclusion is that the report was very poorly written and reviewed. The less charitable conclusion is that they deliberately wanted to mislead.

Again, sloppy, or liars? You decide.