Pew: Republicans want more birther coverage

Another day, another disturbing birther poll. A new Pew poll finds that 79% of Americans have heard at least a little about the false claim that Barack Obama was not born in this country. Within this group, a staggering 39% of Republicans (as well as 30% of independents and 14% of Democrats) think there has been too little coverage of the issue in the media. Only 26% of Republicans think there has been too much coverage; 27% say there has been the right amount and 8% said they didn't know.

Here's the full table with partisan crosstabs:

Previous polls have shown that 28% of Republicans and 41% of Virginia Republicans think Obama is not a citizen of this country.

Comments

[David]

Despite this poll, this issue gets more coverage here than in the conservative blogs that I read. The reason, I believe, is that the issue really involves two separate debates:

1. Is Obama a natural born citizen?
2. Are birthers nuts?

ISTM many Dems would favor widespread coverage for the latter debate.

[rone]

I am forced to agree with David. What's the purpose of these polls? Even if there truly is a disproportionate amount of "birthers" in the South, so what? What do these polls tell us beyond that, and why do we need so many of them?

[MartyB]

Interestingly, I find David's comments to echo my own experience.

I had heard there were some fringe people talking about the Obama birth certificates, but read absolutely nothing about the issue on any of the conservative-leaning sites I read (NR, WSJ, Instapundit - which links to many things - some Pajamas media sites, and others) until after Brendan brought it up here.

I had no idea that this was anything more than a fringe issue (kind of like the 9-11 truthers - although even there you had a few celebrities arguing this view and I've ssen polling that many dems believed this crap at the time).

It does concern me that polls show so many conservatives apparently believe there is something to this, but polls show all kinds of wierd things that cant be easily blamed on leaders of one faction or the other (e.g. 9-11 truthers, saddam involved in 9-11, obama is muslim). Somehow many common people of all politcal stipes take up unusual beliefs.

I blame an educational process that doesn;t help people learn to think and use common sense! :-)

Anyway, I am sure Democratic leaders would love more coverage (and republican leaders ,less) of the birther stuuf because they can then paint *all* republicans as "nuts".

MartyB