Thursday, May 5, 2011

Number of "Birthers" Shockingly Higher Than Zero

Posted By on Thu, May 5, 2011 at 2:30 PM

I certainly understand that there are going to be slightly unhinged people desperately trying to grab a moment in the spotlight by hanging on to a myth that didn't seem all that plausible before Obama released his birth certificate, but it turns out there are still people who aren't quite sure Obama was born in Hawaii. Keep in mind, these are the sort of people who actually answer telephone surveys instead of hanging up and going back to whatever sort of life they have, but still...people.


In a new poll, the number of people who doubt Obama's citizenship has been cut in half since President Obama released his long-form birth certificate, with 86 percent of Americans believing he was born in America or saying that's their best guess, the Washington Post's Jon Cohen reports. Just 10 percent of Americans think the president was born in a foreign country, half the number who thought that in a poll conducted by the Post a year ago. And even those people are mostly birther-lite, saying it's their "suspicion" Obama was born overseas. Only 1 percent say they have "solid evidence" the president was born somewhere else. A year ago, only 48 percent of Americans said Obama was born in Hawaii. That figure is now 70 percent. The group showing the biggest decline in birtherism is conservative Republicans, 16 percent of whom are birthers, down from 35 percent in 2010.

[Atlantic Wire]

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