Bunker Mulligan "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." ~Mark Twain

October 22, 2004

Competitive vs. Ambitious

Filed under: Politics — Bunker @ 6:03 pm

Steve Sailer did some extensive research and analysis for an article at VDARE.com comparing the intelligence of both presidential candidates. Steve concludes, among other things:

The subtle difference between Bush and Kerry in two words: Bush is competitive and Kerry is ambitious.

Read the article to see who is smarter.

Sarah saw it linked by Hud, and virtually challenged me to comment. Even though my brain power has been consumed by MT and comment spam issues the last few days, I thought I should at least give it a try. After all, I’ve taken all the Air Force versions of the tests mentioned, and at about the same timeframe as the candidates.

In an aircraft, an attitude indicator, also known as an artificial horizon, gives a pilot visual indication of the aircraft’s orientation in 3-dimensional space. An aircraft can be oriented through pitch, roll, and yaw. The attitude indicator gives roll and pitch information. The pilot portion of the AF test gives attitude indications, and the examinee must select the drawing of an aircraft which reflects the correct orientation based on the indication.

For me, this was pretty simple, although inverted flight might catch me off guard. I had experience flying, and understood instrumentation. Others without that experience would have more difficulty. The score Bush got reflects that lack of experience.

The other portions of the tests are quite similar to the ACT, SAT, and various IQ tests. I didn’t take the SAT, but I’ve taken several versions of IQ, as well as the AFQT and AFOQT mentioned. The difference is in scoring.

Both the AFQT and AFOQT scored on a percentile basis when I took them, and the maximum score was 95. All the Air Force cared about was what percentile you fit in. A score of 95 meant you scored better than 95% of those who took the test.

I won’t tell you what my scores were, but I agree with Steve that the AFOQT, AFQT, and IQ scores correlate well. Mine did. I will brag on myself a bit, though, and tell you my scores were better than either Kerry’s or Dubya’s.

What does that really mean?

Kerry has generally tried to portray himself as an intellectual, which has been a successful strategy for him in college-crowded Massachusetts.

In contrast, the only election Bush ever lost was a 1978 Congressional race in the Texas Panhandle, where his opponent made fun of Bush for having degrees from Yale and Harvard.

Bush resolved never to get out-dumbed again.

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