The Kossacks Ask Some GOPers Some Questions

Daily Kos poll results

Markos Moulitsas at Daily Kos:

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m putting the finishing touches on my new book, American Taliban, which catalogues the ways in which modern-day conservatives share the same agenda as radical Jihadists in the Islamic  world. But I found myself making certain claims about Republicans that I didn’t know if they could be backed up. So I thought, “why don’t we ask them directly?” And so, this massive poll, by non-partisan independent pollster Research 2000 of over 2,000 self-identified Republicans, was born.

The results are nothing short of startling.

It’s a long poll, so the results are summarized below the fold. For a direct link to the poll’s crosstabs, click here.

Ultimately, these results explain why it is impossible for elected Republicans to work with Democrats to improve our country. Their base are conspiracy mongers who don’t believe Obama was born in the United States, that he is the second coming of Lenin, and that he is racist against white people. They already want to impeach him despite the glaringly obvious lack of high crimes or misdemeanors. If any Republican strays and decides to do the right thing and try to work in a bipartisan fashion, they suffer primaries and attacks. Even the Maine twins have quit cooperating out of fear of their homegrown teabaggers.

Given what their base demands, and this poll illustrates them perfectly, it’s no wonder the GOP is the party of no.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 1/20-31. Self-identified Republicans. MoE 2% (No trend lines)

OBAMA and AMERICA

Should Barack Obama be impeached, or not?

Yes 39
No 32
Not Sure 29

For what? Who the heck knows. Who needs high crimes or misdemeanors when…

Do you think Barack Obama is a socialist?

Yes 63
No 21
Not Sure 16

That’s the power of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, after one year of relentlessly claiming Obama is the second coming of Lenin … and Hitler!

Do you believe Barack Obama was born in the United States, or not?

Yes 42
No 36
Not Sure 22

We still have over a half of Republicans who don’t think Obama was born in the US or think it’s a matter open to debate.

Do you believe Barack Obama wants the terrorists to win?

Yes 24
No 43
Not Sure 33

Not just a quarter of Republicans believe this ludicrous premise, but another third think it’s a matter open to debate. How do you negotiate with a party whose rank and file are that divorced from reality? And speaking of divorced from reality…

Steve Benen:

Yesterday, when Kos started leaking some of these results on Twitter, Greg Sargent noted, “Folks on the left are having fun with these poll numbers allegedly showing Republicans are crazy, but pissing on the GOP base isn’t going to solve the Dems’ political problems. Sorry.”

That strikes me as both fair and accurate. It’s very easy to review these stunning results and think, “The Republican Party is dominated by nutjobs.” Whether that’s true or not will have no bearing on whether those nutjobs elect like-minded candidates to help run the country. (Indeed, in the same poll, 83% of self-identified Republicans said they intend to vote in November.)

That said, the poll results are important for reasons that have nothing to do with their point-and-laugh quotient. Markos noted the practical implications: “Ultimately, these results explain why it is impossible for elected Republicans to work with Democrats to improve our country.”

Exactly. When unhinged voters send far-right lawmakers to speak on their behalf, the result is a group of Republican lawmakers who a) are nowhere near the middle; b) disinclined to compromise; and c) have to toe the party line or risk punishment from the base.

I’d also note that Dems might be able to use numbers like these to characterize the GOP as having given up on the American mainstream. If independents and moderate Republicans begin to think that the GOP has fallen off a right-wing cliff, it’s at least possible that fewer and fewer Americans will want to have anything to do with the party or its candidates.

Doug J.:

I think it’s fair to ask, and I don’t mean this in a snarky way: is the Taliban this crazy? If one made an honest, detailed comparison between the beliefs of Republican rank-and-file and the beliefs of Taliban rank-and-file, what conclusions would one reach? This is a serious question.

Update. This is probably a better example:

Should public school students be taught that the book of Genesis in the Bible explains how God created the world?

Yes 77

No 15

Not Sure 8

Bruce Bartlett:

I can only conclude from this new poll of 2003 self-identified Republicans nationwide that between 20% and 50% of the party is either insane or mind-numbingly stupid.

Charles Johnson at LGF:

These numbers are astounding. Social conservatism has a death grip on the GOP.

I mean — 77% of the Republican base wants creationism taught in public schools? And not the “intelligent design” type of creationism, but Biblical literalist the-earth-is-6000-years-old creationism?

77%?

Bad, bad craziness. This is why I had to draw the line and say, “No, I do NOT subscribe to this dysfunctional world view.”

Joe Klein at Swampland at Time:

The results should be taken with a grain or two of salt. We don’t know the methodology of the poll, although there clearly was an intent to show how extreme the Repubs have become.

But still…

A plurality believes Obama should be impeached. A majority believe he’s a socialist. A narrow plurality believes he was born in America. Only 24% don’t think Acorn stole the election. Only 8% believe that homosexuals should be allowed to teach in schools.

Yikes.

Ann Althouse:

Yes, we have to stop first and wonder how good are the Daily Kos/Research 2000 pollsters. I picked up this story at Talking Points Memo, where there’s no information about why I should trust this poll. How did they locate their 2,000 “self-identified” Republicans, who, TPM tells us represent “the psyche of the minority party’s base”?

And I know that plenty of conservatives won’t call themselves “Republicans.” I’d like to see a poll that delves into the reasons people who call themselves “Republicans” chose call themselves “Republicans” and why others reject the label, despite being conservative.

Also, I wonder if some people who aren’t conservative at all lie to pollsters — especially a poll with a lefty name like “Daily Kos” — so they can skew the results and give those folks the results they imagine the poll is designed to produce: that non-liberals are evil/stupid.

[…]

Wonderful anti-Republican PR results. They justify the fears people who are not Republicans have about the Republican Party. I don’t like thinking people are this extreme, and I wish I could see how the questions were worded. The full survey (and the questions) were not out at the time TPM put up this post, and releasing the results in this form shows reinforces my suspicion that the motivation of the poll is to generate anti-Republican PR.

How would you word questions to ask “self-identified” Democrats if it were your goal to generate anti-Democrat PR? How would you smoke out all the flaky and stupid suggestions they’d go along with if a pollster offered it in a rational-sounding form and didn’t interject amazement at the answers? Then how would you reword the questions to publish the results to make the best propaganda for your side?

UPDATE: Nate Silver

Andrew Sullivan

UPDATE #2: Jake Simpson at The Atlantic with the round-up

UPDATE #3: Bill Scher and Matt Lewis at Bloggingheads

UPDATE #4: Ana Marie Cox and Rich Lowry at Bloggingheads

Glenn Greenwald on this Bloggingheads

UPDATE #5: Lowry responds to Greenwald at The Corner