Facebook as political mirror

A professor of mine used to quote the old adage about statistics being like a lamp-post: more often used to lean on than to shed light. And although statistics never show a complete truth, I believe they can be revealing.

For example, I was recently checking out the Network pages on Facebook. There's a statistics section that lists its members' favorite books/movies/interests etc. Another thing logged is Political Views.

For the Radford University Network (12,973 people) the stats looked like this:
52% - None Listed
13% - Conservative
12% - Liberal
12% - Moderate
5% - Other
3% - Very Liberal
1% - Libertarian
1% - Very Conservative
1% - Apathetic

Surely Virginia Tech folks are more interested in politics, I thought. But no, apparently not. Of 45,065 people you get:
52% - None Listed
13% - Moderate
13% - Conservative
11% - Liberal
4% - Other
2% - Apathetic
2% - Very Liberal
1% - Very Conservative
1% - Libertarian

Tim & I had the opportunity to hear Daniel Spiro speak this weekend, and he asked the audience to imagine the US population, first removing the apathetic (who don't care enough to enter the conversation), and then removing the dogmatic (for whom dialogue is irrelevant)... Then he asked how many are left who are willing to work toward common ground?

This thought weighs heavy on me and it's my goal (and, I believe, the goal of the Radford Operation Democracy Council) to bring more people into the Dialogue Camp, as it were. I honestly don't care which side of the aisle you come from--we're not politically affiliated, after all. What I want is for citizens to become a part of the process.

Conversation, anyone?