The greatest trick Panetta-Burns ever pulled was convincing the world their debt plan didn't exist.
— Matt O'Brien (@ObsoleteDogma) December 4, 2012

Public Policy Polling has moved from polling about campaigns to polling about how many people believe in crazy and non-existent stuff.

PPP's Tom Jensen dishes some highlights from the survey with a dash of data-backed snark:

PPP's first post election national poll finds that Republicans are taking the results pretty hard...and also declining in numbers.

49% of GOP voters nationally say they think that ACORN stole the election for President Obama. We found that 52% of Republicans thought that ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama, so this is a modest decline, but perhaps smaller than might have been expected given that ACORN doesn't exist anymore.

In fiscal-cliff news, the polling firm looked in on the public's attitudes about the Simpson-Bowles plan—and then compared it to an entirely fictional plan to see how many people would pretend to be informed about that:

As much of an obsession as Bowles/Simpson can be for the DC pundit class, most Americans don't have an opinion about it. 23% support it, 16% oppose it, and 60% say they don't have a take one way or the other.

The 39% of Americans with an opinion about Bowles/Simpson is only slightly higher than the 25% with one about Panetta/Burns, a mythical Clinton Chief of Staff/former western Republican Senator combo we conceived of to test how many people would say they had an opinion even about something that doesn't exist.

Bowles/Simpson does have bipartisan support from the small swath of Americans with an opinion about it. Republicans support it 26/18, Democrats favor it 21/14, and independents are for it by a 24/18 margin. Panetta/Burns doesn't fare as well with 8% support and 17% opposition.

The Panetta-Burns plan has taken off on Twitter:

“#PanettaBurns borrows for 20 years at negative real rates, then buries the money for people to dig up,” Matt O’Brien, the Washington D.C.-based economics editor for The Atlantic magazine, wrote in a message, suggesting minutes later “#PanettaBurns invests in a new helicopter fleet to drop money from.”

Josh Barro, a columnist for Bloomberg View, tweeted a few seconds later that “#PanettaBurns balances the budget by taxing Canada.”

Ezra Klein, a Washington Post policy blogger who would be amiss left out of any conversation on deficit reduction, would chime in a few seconds after that, noting “#PanettaBurns increases spending to 33% of GDP in order to purchase every American a unicorn.”

Jensen's memo on the poll, including details about the relative approval numbers for things like seceding from the United States and GOP dark lord Grover Norquist, is below the cut. You can download a PDF with even more details—like whether America has more trust in Nate Silver or the Gallup poll—here.

PPP's first post election national poll finds that Republicans are taking the results pretty hard...and also declining in numbers.

49% of GOP voters nationally say they think that ACORN stole the election for President Obama. We found that 52% of Republicans thought that ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama, so this is a modest decline, but perhaps smaller than might have been expected given that ACORN doesn't exist anymore.

Some GOP voters are so unhappy with the outcome that they no longer care to be a part of the United States. 25% of Republicans say they would like their state to secede from the union compared to 56% who want to stay and 19% who aren't sure.

One reason that such a high percentage of Republicans are holding what could be seen as extreme views is that their numbers are declining. Our final poll before the election, which hit the final outcome almost on the head, found 39% of voters identifying themselves as Democrats and 37% as Republicans. Since the election we've seen a 5 point increase in Democratic identification to 44%, and a 5 point decrease in Republican identification to 32%.

Other notes from our national poll:

-Grover Norquist is largely unknown nationally, and among voters who are familiar with him he is generally disliked. Only 15% have a favorable opinion of him to 37% with a negative one, with 48% not holding an opinion one way or the other. Even among Republicans just 18% see him positively, while 23% have an unfavorable view. Only 23% of voters think it's important for politicians to follow Norquist's tax pledge to 39% who think it's not important and 38% who don't have an opinion.

-President Obama's received a modest post election bump in his approval rating. 50% of voters now approve of him to 47% who disapprove, up a net 4 points from 48/49 on our final post election poll. Voters trust Obama over Congressional Republicans on the issue of Libya by a 48/45 margin, suggesting that their attacks on the issue aren't getting much traction.

-As much of an obsession as Bowles/Simpson can be for the DC pundit class, most Americans don't have an opinion about it. 23% support it, 16% oppose it, and 60% say they don't have a take one way or the other.

The 39% of Americans with an opinion about Bowles/Simpson is only slightly higher than the 25% with one about Panetta/Burns, a mythical Clinton Chief of Staff/former western Republican Senator combo we conceived of to test how many people would say they had an opinion even about something that doesn't exist.

Bowles/Simpson does have bipartisan support from the small swath of Americans with an opinion about it. Republicans support it 26/18, Democrats favor it 21/14, and independents are for it by a 24/18 margin. Panetta/Burns doesn't fare as well with 8% support and 17% opposition.

-David Petraeus has a 44/30 favorability rating nationally and is seen much more favorably by Democrats (47/25) at this point than Republicans (38/36).