My favorite linear equation of the day

A report-with-analysis released by Gallup in the last week shows a direct and "sturdy" correlation between favorable ratings of Barack Obama and the level of education of the respondent.

In other words, the more (formally) educated the person is (feel free to translate that to "smarter" or not as you see fit) the likelier they are to think the guy is OK.

I used the word "sturdy" because the Gallup people were smart enough to also present the data controlling for the fact that

(a) higher-educated people are more likely to be Democrat, across the board (also a surprise that wasn't a surprise but it's nice to see it written down), and (and this is the real surprise)

(b) among Republican respondents Obama is the only candidate for which the favorable numbers go up significantly as a function of education(*).

(*) Conversely, the other consistent finding in this survey/study is that Hillary Clinton is the only major Democratic candidate for which the favorable numbers drop significantly as a function of educational level -- both on the Democratic and Republican side although strangely not for independents (added 8/17: most likely a taxonomy issue; "independent" often being a catch-all term for "don't know / don't care / hung up").

If only there were more smart people than non-smart people this would be a lot easier.