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Which is interesting, but might not be that important. Answering polling questions in the presence of a powerful symbol is not the same as voting. It was the response to the third inquiry that really mattered—for this showed that the difference was, indeed, carried into the polling booth. Whereas 83.5% of those participants in the study who were not shown the flag in the questionnaire said they had voted for Mr Obama, only 72.8% of those who had been shown the flag voted for him. Moreover, when the researchers went back a fourth time, in July 2009, and asked their volunteers to rate Mr Obama’s job performance, the effects of the flag still seemed to be present. Those who had seen it on the second questionnaire gave the president an average score of 6.76 out of 11 those who had not gave him an average of 8.01.
A final series of experiments, carried out in the spring of 2010 using a different group of participants, confirmed the original finding that seeing the flag inclines American voters to the Republicans—even though a Democrat had by then been in the White House for well over a year. That suggests incumbency was not a factor in the original result. The first set of volunteers were not simply associating the Stars and Stripes with the Republican presidency of George Bush junior.
Whether a shift to a more Republican frame of mind is a shift to moderation or not is, of course, a matter of opinion. As it happened, though, Mr Obama tended not to wear the flag during the election campaign. When reporters challenged him about this, he argued that it was because he had patriotism pinned to his heart. No doubt that was true. But perhaps if he had actually been wearing the flag, voters would not have associated it so strongly with Republicanism.

A. 어휘
polling 투표. job performance 직무수행. carried out 실행하다.
confirm 확인하다. incline 기울게 하다. incumbency 在職(재직).
factor 요인, 인자. junior 2세. shift 이동. frame 구조.
moderation 온건, 中庸(중용), 완화. election campaign 선거운동.
reporters 기자. argue 주장하다. patriotism 애국심.
associate 연관시키다.