Also, the sky is blue, the Pope is Catholic, and Ke$ha is really bad. Over at Science Duck, they ran the numbers and found some very unsurprising results:
Methods: the number of sex scandals for politicians (both state/local and national) for the past 10 years was tallied from the list of political scandals provided on Wikipedia. Each scandal was scored as to if it involved a Republican or Democrat, if it involved a gay or straight affair, and whether or not the victim/participant was underage.
Results: Republicans were involved in 61% of sex scandals in the past 10 years, whereas Democrats were involved in just 39%. Moreover, 34% of the total number of scandals were gay scandals (i.e, involving an ostensibly straight politician and a same-sex partner), with Republicans accounting for 78.5% of all gay scandals. Republicans were also involved in 66% of the underage scandals.
Conclusion: If a sex scandal is going on in Washington, there is a 2 in 3 chance it will involve a Republican. And If it’s a gay scandal, it’s almost a sure bet that it involves a Republican.
Goooo Family Values Party!
That 78.5% number is just hilarious. The fact that they also beat the Democrats 2-to-1 in underage sex scandals just further confirms everything we know about the GOP. Of course, the dead-enders will wave their be-cheetoed claws in the air and cry “Liberal bias!”, but they do that all the time anyway.
(h/t Joe Sudbay)
i’ve been saying this – albeit without hard stats – for years now.
…that is, both parties are equally adulterous – the only difference is that republican scandals are gay.
Now I understand Log Cabin Republicans, they’re looking to get laid
Jack–hahaha. The ‘be-cheetoed claws’ was a good one too, i’ll have to remember that one for future reference. BTW-I agree with the others, the impact of these stats are akin to saying that records have proven that it gets cold in January.
Nice to see some stats on this. Of course, the right-wing spin machine will attack it for getting the list of scandals from Wikipedia.
And Jack, that does seem to be their only purpose, doesn’t it?
Ummm… based on what?
The scandals tend to come when someone’s actual behavior doesn’t match their stated values or the political platforms they run on. The family values crowd is far more represented by the Republicans.
Democrats or Independents are probably less likely to have sexual skeletons in their closets, because they have far less reason to be in the closet about them in the first place. Both because there’s less of a downside for them in the first place, and because we’ll tend to rip them to pieces earlier in the process for any hypocrisy – they’re less likely to be enabled by people looking the other way.
I think it’s a measure of the toxicity of the Republican system than anything else.
Man, that tells us a lot about Rethuglican morals and ethics, now doesn’t it? I’ve generally found that “family values” politician. Do what I say, not what I do.
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