From comments posted in our community, we had the sense that the typical poll question about Obama's faith -- do you think he's a Muslim -- wasn't actually getting at the way anti-Obama opinion was congealing. We wondered whether the polls saying 11% of people think Obama is a Muslim dramatically understated the problem Obama had.
So in the new survey of Beliefnet users we asked the quesiton differently and the results are stunning:
11.2% of McCain voters say he's Muslim
31.7% of McCain voters said "he used to be a Muslim and sitll has too many connections to Islam
9.2% said "he used to be a Muslim but now is a practicing Christian.":
In other words, 42% of McCain supporters believed he still has significant personal connections to Islam -- and more than half believe that Obama is or was a Muslim.
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So the $64 question: *Why* do these people believe all that? Was it GOP propaganda or something else? Or, as some have suggested, is it a more-or-less conscious way of saying "He's black and exotic and threatening to me."?
Are these respondents likely to be convinced differently over the next four years?
What would be the problem if indeed Obama was/is a Muslim? There is no religious test for president in this country. At one time folks were scared to have a Catholic for president. Now if someday we can just elect an Atheist!
A question of how someone determined Obama was a Muslim would be interesting. How many watched FOX News, especially Hannity and O'Reilly? How many listed to Hannity and Limbaugh on the radio?
There are rural areas that only get AM radio and tend to be listeners of Hannity and Limbaugh.
The GOP had plenty of propaganda about Obama being a Muslim. In addition, Hillary Clinton was not helpful in that area during the primary.
I agree with Martin that some people wanted to believe the Muslim stories rather than saying the color of Obama's skin was the real issue.
I find it amazing that after almost two years of nonstop smears, new polls have Obama's favorability going up.
A Gallup poll conducted Nov. 6-8 put Obama's favorable to unfavorable ratio at 70 percent to 25 percent, while Bush's job approval rating stood at 27 percent.
I think I read that Obama has the highest or one of the highest favorability ratings of any President Elects.
This just goes to show that the GOP has been hijacked by bigots and fear mongers. This is no longer the party of Lincoln, it is the party of Red Necks and Bigots.
When the Republican party returns to the ideals of its founders, I will come back. As long as it is controlled by hate and greed, I will stay away.
If those people can fall for such a blatant lie, what other things do they believe that's just propaganda? And why were the Obama people unable to convince them otherwise, despite the advertising superiority of the Obama campaign?
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