Better security called for, as presidential candidates’ true thoughts may be ‘too dangerous’ for public consumption
A study in the prestigious scholarly journal Obvious Psychology Today has determined that presidential candidates are apt to say what they really think when they believe they are not being seen or heard.
“We have suspected this for some time,” said principal investigator Edward Stats, an eminent political scientist at an Ivy League university. “But now we have scientific proof that this is true.”
Mr. Stats says the study’s conclusions help explain Gov. Mitt Romney’s remarks at a fundraiser, “when he said about half of all Americans are ‘shiftless, ugly, stupid and worthless people’ or something like that, when he thought he wasn’t being recorded.”
“This also explains then-presidential candidate Barack Obama’s 2008 remark about right-wingers shooting people who disagree with them in church,” the professor explained.
“You see,” Stats added, “Romney and Obama did not actually know that they were being videotaped or recorded, so they said what they actually think.”
The study involved 10 undergraduates at Stats’ university – five each from the College Republicans and five from the College Democrats pretending to be presidential candidates.
Each Republican student was set up with a young Democrat to debate an issue. In the first scenario, the students were told that their debates were going to be televised on the university channel.
“It is important that we get rid of this entitlement while ensuring that the elderly are well-cared for, somehow,” one Republican student said about Medicare.
“I respectfully disagree,” the student Democrat replied. “We must fund everything for the elderly and infirm forever and ever.”
Then the same students were told the debate would not be observed by anyone except the university research team.
In a conversation on the debt ceiling, the Republican student told the student Democrat that he was a “total doofus.”
“You’re just a liberal idiot who wants to spend all the country’s money educating children who are too stupid to learn,” he said.
Danny the Democrat’s eyes bulged out of his head. “You gun-toting slime bucket!” he yelled. “You want all the poor people to die so you can have all their money!”
The researchers had to stop the debate when both of the students got up and threatened to beat each other up.
“Our study shows that we need better security in this country, so that no one surreptitiously records anything presidential candidates say off-camera or off-mic,” Stats explained. “If they think they aren’t being heard, they’re just going to say what they really think. And another study we did shows no one really wants to know what they really think.”
