Conspiracy Theories Abound in the Modern GOP

A new PPP poll asked voters whether they believed Barack Obama actually won the 2008 presidential election, or whether "ACORN stole it for him." 62% of voters think Obama legitimately won, versus 26% for the ACORN conspiracy theory.

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%.

As TPM and Matt Yglesias point out, the comparison to Democratic discontent over Florida in 2000 doesn't really hold -- not just because the difference in the magnitude (less than 600 votes in Florida, versus a 9.5 million vote edge for Obama nationwide), but also because the Florida controversy stemmed from a well-observed and legitimately disputed controversy over how to count imperfect ballots (butterflies, hanging chads, the whole she-bang).*

Meanwhile, Research 2000 put a poll in the field showing right-wing star Marco Rubio surging against wildly popular (statewide, anyway) but moderate Governor Charlie Crist in a GOP primary for the Senate seat -- showing a whopping net 43 point improvement from the last R2K poll. And this is with Rubio at only 50% name ID and with no money spent on advertising yet.

The poll also asked GOP voters whether they believed Obama was born in the US. Only 35% said yes (29% no, 36% not sure). Break that down for Crist and Rubio voters, and a distinct pattern emerges. 73% of Republicans who believe Obama was born in the US go for the more moderate Crist, with only 16% for Rubio. Among birthers, it flips to 31% for Crist and 54% for Rubio. There is, in other words, a pretty clear linkage between the resurgent conservative base currently driving the party and adherence to some pretty ridiculous conspiracy theories about the President. Sayeth Kevin Drum:

This is craziness. I could understand 10 or 15% believing this. That's sort of the base level of people who will believe any nutty idea. But 52%? Someone in the GOP needs to take a deep breath and a long look in the mirror, and then try to rescue their party. Condoning insanity is not a long-term electoral strategy.

This is 9/11 trutherism turned into a legitimate political force. It's a scary thing to behold.

* My own feeling about Florida is that I believe more people in the state filled out a ballot believing they had cast a vote for Al Gore. Whether there was any fair or manageable standard for counting ballots that could have reflected that decision is unknowable, however. The Washington Post's re-recount indicates that Gore's own litigation strategy would have caused him to lose, but a recount of all ballots statewide would have given him the winning edge.

Civil Rights Roundup: 10/23/08

Your daily dose of civil rights and related news

Breath-taking results from a study by Ian Ayres on racial profiling by the LAPD. I'm probably going to write a separate post on this one -- the data is jaw-dropping.

The polls on Proposition 8 have been narrowing, and it looks like the right to gay marriage will go down to the wire.

Three Jews, Four Opinions has a good perspective on how Jews concerned about Halakah should approach issues like same-sex marriage.

ACORN is fighting back against smears that it is (among other things) destroying the fabric of democracy.

America wastes the talents of immigrants with college and professional degrees. One in five college educated immigrants are either unemployed or in unskilled professions, and the problem persists even when the field is restricted to those here legally. Unsurprising note: Highly educated African and Latino immigrants fare worse than their Asian and European peers.

The number of low-income families in America has risen by 350,000.

The EU parliament has given a prestigious human rights award to a Chinese democracy proponent, in direct rebuke to the ruling Communist regime.

The Senate is trying to get the number of foreclosures under control in exchange for the massive bailout money the banks are getting from the federal government.

A federal court is preparing to rule on the propriety of citizenship tests for voters.

In Wisconsin, the forces who care about voter suppression (Democrats) gear up to do battle against those who care more about voter fraud (Republicans).

Though it has been trying to make some reforms, the system for re-enfranchising ex-felons in Florida remains seriously broken.

The Government Accountability Office blasted the civil rights record of the USDA, saying it was unresponsive to reports of discrimination and suggesting it be brought under external oversight.

The British High Court wants to see documents which might verify whether a British Guantanamo detainee was tortured.

Obama Calls the ACORN Bluff

So John McCain has been crying wolf over ACORN registration fraud? Fine, says Obama, let's appoint a special prosecutor to take a look at it, along with all other allegations of voter fraud or voter suppression. The McCain campaign's response? Strident opposition, of course. It's an "absurd" attempt to "criminalize political discourse". But, the spokesman continued,

Rest assured that, despite these threats, the McCain-Palin campaign will continue to address the serious issue of voter registration fraud by ACORN and other partisan groups, and compliance by states with the Help America Vote Act's requirement of matching new voter registrations with state data bases to prevent voter fraud.

Yes -- having qualified professionals actually take a look at your allegations would be a threat when your claims are completely bogus.

Meanwhile, it is worth stressing again what this ACORN business is all about. ACORN's objective is to register as many new voters as possibly (or, depending on your level of cynicism, as many new liberal voters as possible -- it actually doesn't matter for purpose of our analysis). It pays some of its employees by the amount of registrations they collect, and some of those employees collected fraudulent registrations -- either by registering the same person multiple times, or by simply putting down false names. ACORN is legally bound, however, to turn in every registration card that it receives -- a good thing if you think they're just a left-wing front group, as it means they can't sort through the cards and chuck out all the Republicans.

But if ACORN's goal is get new (liberal) voters out there, registration fraud doesn't help them. Federal ID is required for first time voters, so even if Micky Mouse is on the rolls, he's not going to show up at the polling place, ID in hand, and cast a ballot. There is, in fact, virtually no evidence that registration fraud spills over to voter fraud. The fraud here is being committed on ACORN, who has to pay its employees for bogus registrations that don't actually help their cause.