For Obama, danger signs over religion confusion
WASHINGTON _ This is why the New Yorker magazine cover this week portraying Barack Obama as a Muslim created such a stir: 12 percent of Americans already think he’s Muslim, according to a new poll released this afternoon.
The poll evidences the success of an Internet and talk-radio disinformation campaign and the failure by voters to differentiate between fact and fiction. But there’s a surprise or two in this large (2000-plus) national survey of registered voters by the Pew Research Center.
Confusion about Obama’s faith (he’s a Christian) does not break along party lines: Indeed, an identical 12 percent of Democrats and 12 percent of Republicans think he’s Muslim, as do 11 percent of independents.
Nonetheless, of those who mistakenly believe he’s Muslim, 37 percent say they’d vote for him.
The problem for Obama lies elsewhere: The poll found that that one-fourth of voters don’t know what Obama’s religious beliefs are, including 1-in-10 who say they’ve “heard different things about his religion.”
Folks who say they’re hearing different things strongly favor John McCain, 48-33 percent.
Maybe the most significant finding was that confusion has the biggest effect on Democrats. Confused Republicans are likely to vote for McCain anyway, but Democrats who either believe Obama is Muslim or aren’t sure because they’re hearing different things are 28 percent less likely to support Obama than Democrats who believe he’s Christian.
See it for yourself here – and look for Obama to step up efforts to clear up these mistaken impressions even as his detractors continue spreading them.
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Its a shame that we have even 12% of our citizens who are this ignorant. And others who allow people with self interest motives to swap their thinking without knowing the real facts. But, I guess this takes place every where in the world and in every culture. Just human nature. You can plead with people to learn the facts, they still will not listen to the facts. These types just have dark minds incapable of wanting to know the truth about certain things and issues. Oh, well.