I got some pushback from conservatives on Twitter yesterday because of my posts calling out Republican leaders on their post-birtherism: Rather than condemning rumors about the president's religion and birth as nonsense, they either joke about it or suggest that the president could be lying.
The reason is that a non-trivial number of Republicans genuinely believe the president wasn't born here or is a secret Muslim, and Republican leaders don't want to alienate them. A new poll from PPP seems to support that theory, finding that "a 51% majority of national GOP primary voters erroneously think President Obama was not born in the U.S. 28% know that he was." PPP writes states that they polled likely GOP primary voters, which means that "Birthers make a majority among those voters who say they're likely to participate in a Republican primary next year." No wonder Tim Pawlenty made a birther joke at CPAC.
It's only one poll, so that caveat applies. But between the conservative media not being particularly interested in knocking down the rumors, and the Republican leadership appearing too scared to just say the rumors are crazy, the result is hardly surprising.
