Are we still on the Muslim thing?

July 10, 2008

For quite a while, there was considerable public confusion over Barack Obama’s Christian faith. Thanks to an email chain and right-wing whispers, a few too many people were led to believe Obama is, or was, some kind of secret Muslim.

In the ensuing months, there’s been an aggressive push to help people hear the truth. The Jeremiah Wright flap, which received blanket media coverage for weeks, proved that Obama attends a Christian church. Obama frequently emphasizes his Christian faith, and there are even ads on Christian radio stations about Obama’s Christian witness.

So, given these efforts, public confusion is bound to dissipate, right? Wrong. It’s actually getting worse.

From the latest national survey (.pdf) from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press:

“Now, thinking about Barack Obama’s religious beliefs… Do you happen to know what Barack Obama’s religion is? Is he Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, agnostic, or something else?”

Christian 57%
Muslim 12%
Jewish 1%
Something else 2%
Don’t know – Heard different things 10%
Don’t know – Haven’t heard enough 15%
Refused 3%

The number who mistakenly identified Obama as a Muslim was 12%. The number who made the same mistake in March was 10%. That’s obviously a very small increase, but isn’t it about time that number started going down?

As for the rest of the poll results from the Pew Research Center, I suspect the Obama campaign will find the data relatively encouraging.

Two unprecedented findings from the new survey support a potential Democratic turnout advantage. For the first time in Center polls conducted since 1992, a greater proportion of Democrats than Republicans are expressing strong interest in the campaign. Nearly eight-in-ten Democratic voters (77%) say they are giving a lot of thought to the election, up 18 points since June 2004. Republican engagement also has increased over this period (from 61% to 72%), but for the first time somewhat fewer GOP voters than Democrats say they are giving a lot of thought to the election.

There is an even larger gap in the percentage of voters in each party saying they are now more interested in politics than they were during the previous campaign. About seven-in-ten Democratic voters (71%) report they are more interested in politics than they were four years ago, compared with barely half of Republican voters (51%). As with other measures of political engagement, in the past there were no partisan differences or Republicans held the advantage.

A second factor which may also contribute to a Democratic turnout advantage is that supporters of the Republican candidate, uncharacteristically, are less strongly committed to their choice than are supporters of the Democratic candidate. Overall, Obama leads McCain in the presidential horserace by 48% to 40%. Most voters who say they support Obama – 28% among the 48% – say they support him strongly. By contrast, only about a third of McCain’s backers say they support him strongly (14% of the 40%).

Obama is favored to improve the economy (51% to 31%); McCain is favored to handle foreign policy and national security (55% to 31%).

As for the 1% of voters who think Obama’s Jewish … I can’t explain that one at all.

Please, 12% is the percentage of Americans who are going to claim that they only voted against Obama because they believed that the Senator is a Muslim.

They don’t really believe it, they just want something to claim as grounds for voting against him.

Sort of like his being “the most liberal member of the Senate”. It’s not true, but they stick their fingers in their ears every time you try to explain that to them.

  • I think those of us who hang out on political blogs and digest multiple news sources are somewhat blind to the scope and power of the Obama-is-a-Muslim-which-is-synonymous-with-a-terrorist whisper campaign. Those forwarded emails are absolutely everywhere. They’re absolutely insidious and they’re getting more numerous, rather than dying out. They really do have a strong effect on low-information voters who don’t read much.

  • I don’t know why it’s not coming down. Obama is not a Muslim, as far as I know. 🙂

  • 10% vs. 12% is probably within the margin of error. And I think Lance is right that the number isn’t likely to go down further because that core of holdouts isn’t at all interested in basing its views on the readily available objective evidence.

  • That’s the crazy thing, Maria. For all of those out there who are largely ignorant of the basic facts surrounding Barack Obama, somehow, they KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s a terrorist sleeper-cell, Muslim extremist, Constitution-raping terrorist.

  • You mean Obama isn’t Jewish?!!? I suppose next you will try to tell us the Earth isn’t flat.

  • What about the 2% “Something else”? What else is there: Satanist? Anti-Christ?

    Maybe he’s a Pastafarian. I personally would like to think he’s a fellow Bokononist…

  • here’s an idea. find all of those who still thinks obama is a muslim and take away their right to vote – they’re too stupid

  • I wonder what the margin of intentional sabotage is in these polls. Some people just do it for kicks, some to achieve a purpose. And I wonder how the pollsters account for the fact that the average IQ of people who hang up on them is undoubtedly higher than the average IQ of people who take the poll.

  • I’d like to follow up on JRD @ #5’s issue. What *is* the margin of error on the religion question? I downloaded the PDF and searched through it. Maybe I missed it, but I couldn’t find the margin of error listed anywhere.

  • How many Americans believe that Iraq was responsible for 9/11?

    There is something genetic about believing things that aren’t true.

    And I think it’s connected to the ideology that drives right wing fear.

    Wingers are afraid of another terror attack. By Islamic Extremists. Which happens to be every Muslim. Therefore you have to be afraid of Barack Obama. Because if he isn’t a Muslim, than he for sure he is a ‘secret Muslim’ because, you know, his middle name sounds muslim.

    Or something like that.

  • I’m surprised that no one responded “atheist” — after all, he is a Democrat.

  • This is statistically insignificant. Always expect 10%-15% of any poll to be off the deep end.

  • I’m surprised that no one responded “atheist” — after all, he is a Democrat.

    I think that was supposed to be insulting. I found it quite complimentary.

  • Because if he isn’t a Muslim, than he for sure he is a ’secret Muslim’ because, you know, his middle name sounds muslim.

    Uh huh. The money quote’s at 1:10.

  • As an empiricist, you may believe that it is wrong to believe two things that are a logical impossibility. As a Machiavellian, however, it would be hypocritical to choose only one rumor simply because it’s false if both rumors hurt your political enemies.

  • What *is* the margin of error on the religion question?

    Rule of thumb: the margin of error is roughly 1 over the square root of the number of respondents. That last is given as 2004, which corresponds to an MoE of about 2.2%.

  • Unfortunately, not voting for him because “well, he’s secretly a muslim” is alot easier for them to say than “well, he’s black.”

    It’s much more convenient for them to feign stupidity than admit prejuidice.

  • I wonder how many of these people who think Obama is a muslim, won’t vote for him because it was the muslims who attacked america on 9/11.

    Of these people, I wonder how many are evangelical christians.

    Now I wonder, of those same evangelical, how many of those belong to AIPAC, or something along those lines where we should be beholden to israel.

    Now using the logic of muslims attacked america, therefore muslims are bad, shouldn’t they also be saying that jews are the ones who killed jesus, therefore jews are bad?

    Oh wait, logic doesn’t work when you enter the domain of republican neoconservatism. Nevermind.

  • Rule of thumb: the margin of error is roughly 1 over the square root of the number of respondents.

    Really? That’s interesting. Learn something new every day 🙂

  • Last night on NPR, someone from the Politico was critiquing Obama’s first presidential campaign TV ad. This guy went on and on about the central theme of the ad was that Obama needed to tell “middle Americans” that he is patriotic. Fine. But in this analysis, he says something like this: “see Obama has to deal with whispers and slurs against his race and Muslim background.” What I hope he meant was that Obama has to deal with slurs against his race and falsehoods about being a Muslim. But it did not come out that way. Regardless, this overall lack of clarity is exactly what is happening all over the media. They like to say he is “rumored to” or “faces charges of” being a Muslim…but then they won’t declare he is definitively not. This to me explains the polling.

  • mellowjohn – neither did Sammy Davis, Jr.

    I’ve got a personal thing going on this one, and when I learned about it, it blew my mind.

    Oh, and BTW, there’s a Keith Ellison conflation in here, too. Supposedly, Obama took his oath of office on a Koran. F*cking scumbag liars. Makes you wish there actually was a place called Hell.

    And I think the Democrat = athiest was humorous. I smiled.

  • 19. On July 10th, 2008 at 4:28 pm, Tom said:
    Unfortunately, not voting for him because “well, he’s secretly a muslim” is alot easier for them to say than “well, he’s black.”

    It’s much more convenient for them to feign stupidity than admit prejuidice.
    ____________________

    You stole my thunder. Exactly the point I was trying to make, though I really have to wonder why. I mean, I know not all of my opinions are popular ones (after all, I’m not a real progressive, and don’t know what I’m talking about), but you should be able to back up your opinions with something. If you’re harboring racist views, so you “pretend” Obama is a Muslim and that’s why you won’t vote for him, when there’s MOUNTAINS of evidence to prove he’s NOT a Muslim, isn’t like saying “oh, thank God, everyone thinks I’m a complete and total numbskull, but as long as they don’t know I’m racist, that’s fine by me?” You’d rather people think you’re almost too stupid to live than think you’re a hater?

    I guess deep down, people know their hatred for “others” IS irrational and stupid, so they don’t mind being thought of as such. Kinda like the snake eating its own tail thing. Or maybe it’s like guys who love wrestling so much, they pretend that they know that it’s not real but they don’t care. What’s more stupid, not knowing wrestling is fixed, or knowing, not caring but getting just as emotionally involved?

  • I don’t know if that’s how you calculate margin of error in statistics, but in the pharma industry thats how you determine the size of a representative sample.

    say you produce x number of capsules. the amount of those capsules that you have to retain for testing and whatnot is found by determining the square root of x, plus 1.

    500000 caps, square root equals 707 capsules, plus 1, your representative sample is 708 capsules.

  • I believe Obama is agnostic. If he were convinced Americans wanted him to be a certain religion, i.e., Catholic, then he would refine his position to emphasize his Catholic great-grandfather on his mother’s father’s side. Presto, chango! He’d be a Catholic.

  • “McCain is favored to handle foreign policy and national security (55% to 31%).”

    Ok, that’s just BS. Obama better seriously bring down that number in the next few months.

  • Driftglass makes the point that this 12% mentioned are aware of the truth and just don’t care. They will believe their’s or their authoritarian leader’s opinion in the face of irrefutable evidence to the contrary so no matter how many times they have proven to them that Obama is not a Muslim…when asked they will still claim he’s a Muslim simply because they like the idea. They make up their own truth.

    Just like the voter who said they wouldn’t rust anybody with the name Hussein even if he’s not a Muslim he might as well be one. the question of religion affiliation should be followed with does the earth revolve around the sun just as a check.

    Not just ignorant or stupid but willfully truth avoiding.

  • tom_oftheplains said:
    What about the 2% “Something else”? What else is there: Satanist? Anti-Christ?

    Actually, there are plenty of other choices. I happen to be a member of the Baha’i Faith. That wasn’t on the list in spite of the fact that we will probably outnumber jews globally in the next 5 or 10 years. And what about Sikhs? Wicca? Shamanism? and numerous others…

  • The 1% are probably people who believe ‘muslim’ is a ‘politically correct’ word for ‘jewish’ and refuse to use it on the grounds that they won’t submit to the whims of a minority.

    You laugh, but if you think about it, you’ll weep when you realize it’s quite possibly true.

  • Slappy wrote: “You’d rather people think you’re almost too stupid to live than think you’re a hater?”

    That’s the magic of the “Secret Maddrassa trained Muslim” lie. If it’s a secret that he’s a Muslim, then all the evidence of his conversion and church attendence has no meaning. He’s just faking you out.

    Of course, you could point out to such a person that they have just conceded that Islam is a greater religion than Christianity because a former adherent to Islam can never become a Christian through conversion. That of course is what Islamists believe (to the point of killing converts) but that’s not the public position of most Christian denominations (you baptise, you’re Christian).

  • As for the 1% of voters who think Obama’s Jewish … I can’t explain that one at all. — CB

    Never heard of Baruch Obama?

  • Rule of thumb: the margin of error is roughly 1 over the square root of the number of respondents. That last is given as 2004, which corresponds to an MoE of about 2.2%.

    Stat isn’t my strong suit, so I have to trust you on the equation. That said, I did the math myself and came to that same number: 2.234%.

    So the increase Carpetbagger is lamenting about is actually well within the MoE. No big deal there.

  • @ rvadem #23:

    Today I happened to catch a bit of All Things Considered where they were talking to some pro-McCain Latina women. One of these ladies was convinced that Obama leaving his church proved that he was returning to being a Muslim.

    To his credit, the reporter made a significant digression about how Obama was never a Muslim, that he studied in a secular school in Indonesia, and that he had always considered himself Christian. When he pointed this out to the woman, she grudgingly accepted it for a second, then went right back to ranting about how terrible it is that Obama’s a Muslim and left his church.

    The only thing this piece convinced me of is that NPR could find seven idiots (or six people happy to let one idiot speak for them) who happen to be Latina and who weren’t really interested in examining evidence to overturn their preconceptions. I don’t imagine that Obama will get much of the flat-earth 28% of the vote, no matter the race or sex of the voter.

  • I heard the same thing on NPR….it was an interview of members of “Latinas for McCain,” so not really a representative sample. Still, interesting to hear to what lengths people are going to in an attempt to avoid voting for Sen. Obama. I think there are three kinds of people who vote for Sen. McCain: 1) those who truly believe in supply-side economics, the overturn or Roe, and other “Conservative” issues; 2) people who seem to hope that, as bad as Sen. McCain’s ideas, policies, outlook and understanding of the world appear to be, that he won’t be THAT bad a president; and 3) people who are being willfully obtuse. I think that’s the best way to describe it: people who are afraid of Obama and are simply trying hard not to believe anything good about him. My wife is a big Hillary Clinton supporter, and anytime I say anything nice about Obama, she gets upset. She’ll vote for him, but not happily: she simply refuses to believe anything good about him. Willfully obtuse…best way to describe at least the 12% of Americans who believe Sen. Obama is a Muslim.

    PS: Why is it an “attack” or a “slur” against Sen. Obama if he were a Muslim? Even the liberals phrase it that way. Have we really sunk so low that simply being a Muslim is somehow dirty? Wait, don’t answer that….

  • Don’t forget folks… Obama also went to a madrassa!

    Run to the hills! Run to the hills!

    My God.

    • Comments are closed.