First, a quick recap of the results of last year's election: Obama won the popular vote by a 53%-46% margin. This was the equivalent of over 9.5 million votes.
Today, a new poll from Public Policy Polling asks what at first glance seems like a parody question:
"Do you think that Barack Obama legitimately won the Presidential election last year, or do you think that ACORN stole it for him?"
Sounds like something Colbert would cook up. Or maybe The Onion. Most sentient individuals would simply laugh off such a silly question. Brace yourself for the results...
A majority of Republicans in this country thinks that nearly 10 million votes were stolen by ACORN:
The new national poll from Public Policy Polling (D) has an astonishing number about paranoia among the GOP base: Republicans do not think President Obama actually won the 2008 election -- instead, ACORN stole it.
Just check out these numbers:
Among Republicans, however, only 27% say Obama actually won the race, with 52% -- an outright majority -- saying that ACORN stole it, and 21% are undecided. Among McCain voters, the breakdown is 31%-49%-20%. By comparison, independents weigh in at 72%-18%-10%, and Democrats are 86%-9%-4%.
That 9% figure among Democrats is a bit disconcerting--perhaps most of them were laughing too hard to accurately push the right button on their phone.
But 52% of Republicans??? Setting aside for a moment that there aren't too many of them left (at least that will admit to it), this number surprises even me, and I'm always ready to assume the worst about the GOP base. A shout out to the 21% who are still a-ponderin'. May their cogitatin' not be too painful.
TPM goes on to make this observation:
This number goes a long way towards explaining the anger of the Tea Party crowd. They not only think Obama's agenda is against America, but they don't think he was actually the choice of the American people at all!
Well shit, that's hardly surprising considering that they don't think he was born in this country either:
PPP communications director Tom Jensen says: "Belief in the ACORN conspiracy theory is even higher among GOP partisans than the birther one, which only 42% of Republicans expressed agreement with on our national survey in September."
"Only 42%"? This is the state of today's GOP: it counts as some sort of triumph of reason that only four out of ten of them are birthers. At this rate we'll be handing out gold stars to them for not making poopie in their pants.
One last thought: pause for a moment and ponder how they'd be handling things if they'd lost the election by, say, 500 votes. In a state run by Obama's brother.
