A national survey by Public Policy Polling found that 48% of Republicans (and 26% of Americans generally) endorsed the unsupported smear that President Obama doesn't love America (27% of Republicans said Obama does love America and 25% were not sure). Those numbers are even worse than the myth that Obama wasn't born in this country, which was endorsed by 42% of Republicans (and 23% of Americans generally) in a September PPP poll.
Update 10/23 2:05 PM: As a point of comparison (per Jinchi's comment), a Fox News poll in June 2008 asked "How much do you think Barack Obama loves America?" (rather than "Do you think that Barack Obama loves America?"). 27% of Republicans said "a great deal," 34% said "somewhat," 14% said "not much," 12% said "not at all," and 14% said they didn't know. Though the question and response options varied slightly, those responses are substantially more positive than those found by PPP.
Update 10/25 8:42 PM: Per MartyB's comment, it's worth clarifying that the reason I compared the two posts above. While the two claims obviously differ in terms of the extent to which they can be disproven, both polls demonstrate that Obama is not viewed as a legitimate president by much of the GOP base.
(Cross-posted to Pollster.com)
I disagree with the word "unsupported". People may have judged love of country based on speeches Obama made to foreign audiences that criticized bad things done by America while pretty much ignoring the many great things we have done. Or, they may have noticed how many Americans he has smeared. E.g., doctors, conservatives, Rush Limbaugh and his 20 million listeners, insurance people, the Chamber of Commerce, Fox News, and financial executives. Or, some people may feel that he's pursuing policies that they believe are bad for America, thus demonstrating a lack of love for the country.
IMHO it's reasonable to disagree with those who think Obama doesn't love America, but they could well have a basis for that belief.
P.S. I wonder how other recent Presidents fared on that survey question. Also, I wonder whether that question was even asked of prior Presidents.
Posted by: David | October 23, 2009 at 11:39 AM
I wonder how other recent Presidents fared on that survey question.
It is an odd question and I couldn't find any evidence that it had been asked before of previous presidents.
I expect Brendan would know. Is this a new thing?
Posted by: Jinchi | October 23, 2009 at 12:33 PM
According to the PPP poll, 13% of Democrats answered no or not sure to the question whether Obama loves his country, as did 43% of independents. Apparently doubts about the President's love of his country are widespread, including even among his supporters.
President Obama says he loves his country, and I take him at his word--though I've never been much for school spirit and find "love of country" a problematic concept.
What does strike me is that we're expected these days to assume that our country's leaders love the country and are acting in what they regard as its best interests, and anything to the contrary is considered a smear, whereas during the previous Administration it was perfectly fine to suggest that the Administration was making decisions not for the benefit of the country but to benefit Halliburton or the oil companies or the rich. That wasn't a smear, it was speaking truth to power.
Posted by: Rob | October 23, 2009 at 12:44 PM
Brendan - Your comparison of these poll results to the birther poll results is complete "apples to oranges". One is a belief or non-belief in something that has been reasonably factually proven, while the other is complete opinion and could never be factually proven. I see no purpose in comparing the two.
Also why is such an opinion a “smear” if it is based on a person's actual perception of the facts? Just because you disagree with that perception doesn’t automatically make it a “smear”.
IMO, this is an uncharacteristically weak and poorly thought-out post..
Posted by: MartyB | October 23, 2009 at 01:26 PM
Jinchi, good question! Updating post above.
Posted by: bnyhan | October 23, 2009 at 01:58 PM
Brendan, your update is unresponsive to the question raised by David and Jinchi. They were asking about the perception of love of country for previous presidents, not earlier perceptions for the current president.
Further to my earlier comment likening love of country to school spirit, I neglected to pass along the lyrics to "Be True to Your School," which are highly germane to the discussion.
Posted by: Rob | October 23, 2009 at 02:10 PM
The Update actually seems to provide some support to the idea that the opinion on Obama's "love of country" may be based on his performance since being elected.
It's possible that in 2008, most folks had little information to base their opinion on so they gave him the benefit of the doubt, but his actions since seems to have changed their opinions.
I would also be interested to see if that question was asked about previous presidents.
Posted by: MartyB | October 23, 2009 at 06:42 PM