U.S. Presidential Election 2008

[cacophony]

Originally Posted by Sean

Just had to highlight that quote.

^ i felt dirty typing it.

did you hear about hillary's april fool's day joke? she called a press conference and intimated that she might be leading up to a statement about dropping out of the race. then instead challenged obama to a bowling match.

lol, hillary. *blank stare*

[Deckard]

Up until the last line, that was an astonishingly convincing performance.

Her acting abilities are better than I realised.

[Sean]

I've seen an interesting poll result a couple times now and just thought it was worth sharing:

"Twenty-three percent of white Democrats who hold unfavorable views of Obama believe he is a Muslim"

It's interesting to me in a few ways. One, because it reveals how uninformed some people out there are. I mean you have to have been living under a rock to still believe Obama is Muslim. And that's giving the benefit of the doubt to these people, because I'm sure many of them have heard reports that Obama's not Muslim, but choose to remain willfully ignorant about the facts.

Two, it's no surprise, but it's interesting that this confirms what I would guess - uninformed, ignorant people seem to associate "Muslim" with "bad". The idea that people can go out there and proclaim that they don't like Obama because (at least in part) they think he's Muslim is about as blatantly bigoted as it gets.

And finally, what does this say about Hillary Clinton supporters? I assume that these folks back her since they're Democrats who hold unfavorable views of Obama. Anyway, it only adds to my suspicion that for the most part, in order to be a Hillary supporter at this point, you have to either be completely comfortable with machiavellian tactics, or flat out ignorant. I feel bad lumping so many people into these groups, but I really can't see any other logical conclusions. I'm open to hearing any Clinton supporter thoughts on it though. At this point, I just don't know of any I can talk to, so it's hard for me to get a real handle on what could draw someone to her.


Anyway, here's the article where I most recently saw this poll result referenced:

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/04...s_obama_p.html

[Deckard]

Twenty-three percent???

[cacophony]

Originally Posted by Sean

"Twenty-three percent of white Democrats who hold unfavorable views of Obama believe he is a Muslim"

i don't believe it for an instant. not one instant.

[Deckard]

Here's some more data on who thinks Obama is a Muslim...

A Pew Research Center News Interest Index survey earlier in March found that 79% of the general public had heard rumors that Obama is Muslim, and 38% had heard "a lot" about this. The current survey finds that most voters have no misconceptions about Obama's religious beliefs - 53% say that he is Christian. But one in ten believes Barack Obama is Muslim. Roughly a third (34%) say they don't know what his religious beliefs are, though 9% say the reason they don't know is that they've heard different things about his religion, not that they haven't heard about it.

Notably, the impression that Obama is Muslim crosses party lines: 14% of Republicans, 10% of Democrats and 8% of independents think he is Muslim. Within both parties, ideology is a major factor: 16% of conservative Republicans believe Obama is Muslim, compared with 9% of moderates and liberals. And 13% of conservative and moderate Democrats believe Obama is Muslim, compared with just 5% of liberal Democrats.

The impression that Obama is Muslim varies by education, region, and religious background. Voters who did not attend college are three times as likely to believe Obama is Muslim when compared with voters who have a college degree (15% vs. 5%). And voters in the Midwest and South are about twice as likely as those in the Northeast and West to hold this belief. Nearly one-fifth of voters (19%) in rural areas say Obama is Muslim, as do 16% of white evangelical Protestants.

But there is little difference by age, gender or race in terms of voters' likelihood of thinking Obama is Muslim. Most notably, about as many black (10%) as white (11%) voters believe he is Muslim.

There is little evidence that the recent news about Obama's affiliation with the United Church of Christ has dispelled the impression that he is Muslim. While voters who heard "a lot" about Reverend Wright's controversial sermons are more likely than those who have not to correctly identify Obama as a Christian, they are not substantially less likely to still believe that he is Muslim. Nearly one-in-ten (9%) of those who heard a lot about Wright still believe that Obama is Muslim.

Overall, the impression that Obama is Muslim has at most a slight impact on his fortunes in November - mostly because so few voters hold this belief in the first place. Moreover, Obama is only slightly less competitive against John McCain than Clinton is among the minority who believe this about him. Among the 10% of voters who say he is Muslim, 35% would still choose Obama over McCain in a general election matchup, while 61% would vote for McCain. These same voters would also choose McCain over Clinton, but by a smaller 52% to 42% margin.

Fwiw, About the survey

[cacophony]

^ thank you. i knew that stat sounded like bunk.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by cacophony

^ thank you. i knew that stat sounded like bunk.

Actually, from the same Pew poll report that Deckard quotes:

"...nearly a quarter of white Democrats (23%) who hold a negative view of Obama believe he is a Muslim."

It's in the third paragraph down on page 2 of the report (or at least the number at the bottom of the page is 2....it's actually the third page of the pdf file). I swear this is not made up, Cacophony. This is a legitimate, and shocking statistic. And actually, the whole paragraph makes it even more disturbing:

"In particular, white Democrats who hold unfavorable views of Obama are much more likely than those who have favorable opinions of him to say that equal rights for minorities have been pushed too far; they also are more likely to disapprove of interracial dating, and are more concerned about the threat that immigrants may pose to American values. In addition, nearly a quarter of white Democrats (23%) who hold a negative view of Obama believe he is a Muslim."

Crazy stuff.

So knowing this, I'm curious what other's thoughts are on the points I mentioned in regards to it earlier, as well as any other thoughts anyone has about it.

[Strangelet]

Originally Posted by Sean

Actually, from the same Pew poll report that Deckard quotes:

"...nearly a quarter of white Democrats (23%) who hold a negative view of Obama believe he is a Muslim."

It's in the third paragraph down on page 2 of the report (or at least the number at the bottom of the page is 2....it's actually the third page of the pdf file). I swear this is not made up, Cacophony. This is a legitimate, and shocking statistic. And actually, the whole paragraph makes it even more disturbing:

"In particular, white Democrats who hold unfavorable views of Obama are much more likely than those who have favorable opinions of him to say that equal rights for minorities have been pushed too far; they also are more likely to disapprove of interracial dating, and are more concerned about the threat that immigrants may pose to American values. In addition, nearly a quarter of white Democrats (23%) who hold a negative view of Obama believe he is a Muslim."

Crazy stuff.

So knowing this, I'm curious what other's thoughts are on the points I mentioned in regards to it earlier, as well as any other thoughts anyone has about it.

seriously. didn't some 50+ % of the country think Saddam Hussein was *directly* responsible for 9/11 ?

And these 23% of democrats are probably only democrats because they are in a union and their union tells them to vote democrat only because its best for the union, ignoring all other considerations. Most of the unions also support hillary clinton. so there you go.

[cacophony]

Originally Posted by Sean

I swear this is not made up, Cacophony. This is a legitimate, and shocking statistic.

it just doesn't jive with the rest of the assertions in the study.

ordinarily i get behind pew's research methods. but this strikes me as total, unadulterated bunk. poor statistics. there is zero chance that 25% of democrats think obama is muslim. zero chance.