More On Birther Nation - Some Polling Data

Talking Points Memo posted a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/poll-28-of-republican-base-are-birthers.php?ref=fpblg"this/a yesterday:blockquoteA new Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll finds that 77% of Americans believe President Obama was Indeed Born in the United States, with only 11% saying he was not -- but there's no clear verdict among Republicans.br /br /Among Republicans, it's a much weaker plurality of only 42% who say Obama was born in the U.S., with 28% saying he was not, with a very high undecided number of 30%. Among Democrats, the number is 93%-4%, and among independents it's 83%-8%.br /br /This means that for Republicans to openly admit that Obama is indeed a natural-born American citizen, they risk alienating a significant chunk of their loyal base. And on the other hand, they could scare away independents by humoring the tin-foil hat crowd. /blockquotea href="http://www.dailykos.com/statepoll/2009/7/30/US/320"Here/a are the numbers for the poll.br /br /And then things get curiouser. An update at TPM:blockquoteAnother thing to point out is that Birtherism is heavily concentrated in the South. Only 47% of Southerners say Obama was born in the United States, 23% say he was not, and 30% aren't sure./blockquote Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly has some a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/019306.php"more/a on this:blockquoteA new Research 2000 poll conducted for Daily Kos asked respondents a rather straightforward question: "Do you believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States of America or not?" Since the president was born in the U.S., ideally, the results would be around 100%. div style="float: right; margin-left: 15px; margin-bottom: 10px;"br //div pThey weren't. There was, not surprisingly, a significant partisan gap. Only 4% of Democrats are confused about the president's place of birth. The number is slightly higher among independents, 8% of whom got it wrong. Among Republicans, though, 28% -- more than one in four -- believe President Obama was not born in the United States./p pFor a crazy, demonstrably false, racist idea, these are discouraging numbers./p pBut I was especially surprised by the regional breakdowns. In the Northeast, West, and Midwest, the overwhelming majorities realize the president is a native-born American. But notice the South -- only 47% got it right and 30% are unsure./p pOutside the South, this madness is gaining very little traction, and remains a fringe conspiracy theory. Within the South, it's practically mainstream./p/blockquote And some art:br /a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWWnAhE7hsi5lB0HO1s2-USL9LK1Z32AVqWZgkJkT7b7xFBEAD1OyZoajqsD5Rx0msQHjz0KvgHtov9pnz-5YgJi-Z7m0Ww3SwgRd6gXcjnPAVmFeTm0ekaesjCV6QQS7npLd3iyNG_sI/s1600-h/birthers.png"img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 383px; height: 272px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWWnAhE7hsi5lB0HO1s2-USL9LK1Z32AVqWZgkJkT7b7xFBEAD1OyZoajqsD5Rx0msQHjz0KvgHtov9pnz-5YgJi-Z7m0Ww3SwgRd6gXcjnPAVmFeTm0ekaesjCV6QQS7npLd3iyNG_sI/s400/birthers.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5364981192405656690" border="0" //aHmmm...Southern conservatives skew the GOP's numbers regarding the authenticity of an African-American's claim to be an American citizen. br /br /Who would've guessed span style="font-style: italic;"that/span would be the case?div class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/8213262-8275746795907331849?l=2politicaljunkies.blogspot.com'//div

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