I'm seeing a lot of conservatives, referring to the emerging possibility that Research 2000's polls for Daily Kos were fradulent, say that means all of the findings from the infamous poll about crazy things Republicans think are bogus. While I'd agree that Research 2000's poll may have been bogus, I would not agree it means Republicans don't think those things. We have polled on many of the same issue over the last year and in some cases found even more Republicans buying into some of those conspiracy theories. For instance:
-In September we found only 37% of Republicans believed Barack Obama was born in the United States while 42% think he was not and 22% were unsure. Those numbers actually showed a higher birther quotient than the discredited R2K numbers that claimed 42% of Republicans believed Obama was born in the country while 36% thought he was not, and 22% were unsure.
-In November we found 52% of Republicans thought ACORN stole the 2008 Presidential election for Barack Obama while 27% thought he legitimately won it and 21% were unsure. That again showed a much higher level of belief in election fraud than the R2K numbers that claimed 21% of Republicans believed the election was stolen while 24% thought it was not and 55% were unsure.
-In December we found 35% of Republicans thought Barack Obama should be impeached while 48% thought he should not be and 17% were unsure. The Research 2000 poll claimed a similar, although slightly higher, level of support for impeachment from Republicans with 39% favoring it, 32% opposed, and 29% not sure.
Would I be leery of the Research 2000 findings on some of these extremist Republican views? Absolutely. But other pollsters have found the same thing. The discrediting of R2K doesn't change the fact that many GOP voters do subscribe to these unproven conspiracy theories.
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I can't believe you're putting yourself in the same class as Research 2000. If the wording on these questions doesn't make you want to vomit I question your commitment to serious polling. Your questions are more neutrally worded, while theirs lead the respondent to answer one way. You follow a birther question with a 9/11 conspiracy question and then a neutral question.
Their questions get crazier as they go along, so that by the end the respondent is so worked up he'll answer yes to anything.
Please don't try to defend that poll. Doing that hurts your credibility.
The real story is not the beliefs of Republicans, but the corruption of Democrats... and their arrogant refusal to investigate and police their own. It is the wickedness of the Democrats that make Republican conspiracy theories so plausible. Because Democrats have proven so many times to be corrupt... and to not care how corrupt their own party is. Democrats have PROVEN time and time again that Democrats are MORE WICKED and MORE CORRUPT than even Republicans suspect.
Bill Clinton
Barney Frank
Ted Kennedy
Robert Byrd
Gerry Studds
Dan Rostenkowski
ACORN
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=donkey+cons&x=16&y=18
Herbie, you're a great self-parody.
DBL: Tom isn't defending Research 2000 or the poll itself. The point is that while their polls were likely fabricated, it doesn't follow logically that the results they found are also false, and they aren't in some of these cases, as Tom highlighted using our own poll data.
Research 2000? Daily Kos? OH PLEEEEZE!!!
Let's see... ACORN, who was found to have in fact acted legally, and was video-edited to make look bad by the same guy who was later convicted of trying to wiretap a Democratic Senator's office? Bill Clinton, who was acquitted of all charges and who was found to have acted completely legally in the Whitewater case that started the entire witch hunt? Byrd, who for fifty years has repudiated and renounced his prior racist beliefs? Two guys who haven't been in Congress for over a decade? You didn't even mention Jefferson of New Orleans, who was indeed a crook and got voted out by Democratic voters for it. That's a long list of baseless and debunked and outdated Republican attacks, basically.
Meanwhile, the patron saint of Republicanism, Ronnie Raygun, sold weapons to Iran and cut deals with a hostile regime to help manipulate American politics to his advantage; 'Diaper' David Vitter continues to serve on the Republican side of the aisle after patronizing a madam in D.C.; Sarah Palin has yet again been found guilty of ethics violations during her period as governor; W openly admits to war crimes, went AWOL, and did coke; Cheney shot a man in the face; Laura Bush killed her boyfriend; the entire Jack Abramoff scandal; Tom Delay's money laundering charges; the list goes on. Republicans are the party of rampant and ongoing corruption; Democrats actively expunge the corrupt.
Dustin, just because their polls were fabricated it doesn't mean your poll results are false. What Tom is doing here isn't defending his questions, but defending their questions. There's a reason you worded your questions differently than they did.
Your business is tough because people doubt polls and their accuracy is right out front. Credibility is fragile. You don't want to tie yourself in with their questionable practices, which is what I think he's doing here.
"Dustin, just because their polls were fabricated it doesn't mean your poll results are false."
That's what I said.
I definitely appreciate your belief in our methodology and business practices. But I think you're still missing what Tom's trying to say. He's responding to attacks on conservative blogs and Twitter feeds today trumpeting the takedown of Research 2000 and summarily rejecting all of what they found. What they found wasn't always wrong--it was just probably at least partially made up, not reflecting actual interviews of a random sample of voters. So it's bad polling, but not necessarily false results.
"You don't want to tie yourself in with their questionable practices, which is what I think he's doing here."
Certainly not. Tom was one of the first to question Research 2000's validity.
Isn't it possible that R2K used the PPP polling as it's baseline and then just played with the numbers from there? Seems like all of those polls came out before R2K's claimed January polling.
At the risk of being executed -- and more importantly offending the folks at PPP -- just because you attempted to poll honestly doesn't mean your results accurately reflect the opinions of the majority of republicans. Polls are polls, after all, and if you are asking 400 people a question --even a legitimate question in a legitimate manner -- all you can say with certainty is: That is the opinion of 400 people. The statistical method that equates 400people, within a certain MOE, to millions of people must always be taken with a certain skepticism.
I am a republican, as is most of my friends and family. Could be we fit within the small 1/3 number that are rational, but we do not think ACORN stole the 2008 election, we have no doubt Obama is an American citizen, etc. etc.
I strongly suggest that polls should be limited to people's political choices -- and not their ideology. Thus, the fraility of polling itself does not subject vast amounts of people to false suggestions.
Dustin, how can you possibly be so stubborn that you won't believe the truth when I tell you. Do you have any commonsense at all?!
Democrats are notoriously wicked and corrupt. There is nothing Republicans have ever come up with as a "conspiracy theory" that Democrats have not topped in real life.
YOU ARE THE LAUGHABLE PARODY. You are the fool who won't listen to reason and pull his head out of the sand.
I hadn't realized that there was that much support for the idea that ACORN had swung 2008 for Obama; I had thought it was just in certain smaller-scale, much closer elections... Gregoire (WA Gov '04) and Franken (MN Sen '08) being the most prominent examples in my mind.
NRH, ACORN is a corrupt organization that routinely condoned prostitution, tax evasion, and illegal immigration... and then attacked the investigative jouenalists who should have received a Congressional Medal of Honor for their work.
ACORN is also the thuggish group that persecutes businesses, breaks into homes, commits voter fraud, and proselytizes progressivism at taxpayer expense.
ACORN is EVIL. And for anyone to try to defend ACORN just proves how EVIL you are too.
And you Demoncrats wonder why America is rejecting your tyranny?!
ACORN is the corrupt thuggish organization that condones prostitution, illegal immigration, and tax evasion... then attacks the courageous investigative journalists, whom should be PRAISED for their work.
ACORN also persecutes businesses, breaks into homes, commits voter fraud, and proselytizes at taxpayer expense.
ACORN is EVIL. And for anyone to actually defend ACORN just proves how evil Democrats are.
And you Demoncrats wonder why America is rejecting your corruption and tyranny?!
Republican "conspiracy theories" are the work of honest people holding evil Democrats accountable for their tyranny and corruption. But the sad thing is that Democrats are more evil than any Republican "conspiracy theorist" could ever suspect. Democrats are their own parody.
despite your lies, we KNOW acorn funds you.
Impeachment of Obama is hardly a conspiracy theory. To the contrary, it would seem to be the appropriate measure given his continuation of undeclared wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Herbie, have you ever considered going on Last Comic Standing? You're hilarious. I mean, really. I get now that you're not serious, that you're some genius Onion writer who's trying to send up the entire Tea Party movement.
Seriously! I have to admit, accusing ACORN of breaking into houses, conveying religious messages, and persecuting businesses is new, but defending the guys who were CAUGHT RED-HANDED AND CONVICTED for trying to break into a Senator's office and interfere with the phone system as 'courageous investigative journalists?' Seriously, try to at least learn something about the topics you're going on paranoid nutjob fantasies about. Or at least take off your ACORN-mind-ray blocking tinfoil hat so we can adjust your brainwaves to something less nutty. ;-P
I remember back when there were poll analysts who saw Research 2000 as a rising star in the field of political polling.
Evidently, their alliance with DailyKos has been nothing less than a disaster.
NRH:
ACORN broke into houses. This is an established FACT.
Proof that you are completely brainwashed and misguided and delusional.
http://insidecharmcity.com/2009/02/20/acorn-breaking-into-foreclosed-upon-homes/
ALL TRUTH COMES FROM THE RIGHT.
ALL LIES COME FROM THE LEFT.
The most insane and implausible and ridiculous conspiracy theories always come from the LEFT. The left's obsession with an honest talented man like Karl Rove is proof enough that the left is completely unhinged from reality.
http://www.rove.com/uploads/0000/0352/Courage_and_Consequence_Rove_Ch34.pdf
Republican investigations are much more plausible than left-wing conspiracy theories.
Case in point, after shutting down my blogpost for anti-Obama reporting, (http://dchrist81.blogspot.com/2010/05/barack-obamas-social-security-number.html) Google has apparently found my reporting impeccable and restored my blog.
Republican investigations uncover the truth. Democrats'conspiracies are aimless lies.
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