SUBSCRIBE NOW WELCOME BACK. Do you want to continue reading where you left off? New Republic subscribers can pick up where they left off no matter which device they were previously using. SUBSCRIBE NOW

Go Home The Emerging Republican (Birther) Majority

JONATHAN CHAIT FEBRUARY 15, 2011

The Emerging Republican (Birther) Majority

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

Very interesting new PPP poll of likely GOP primary voters. First, birthers comprise an outright majority of the likely primary electorate:

Birthers make a majority among those voters who say they're likely to participate in a Republican primary next year. 51% say they don't think Barack Obama was born in the United States to just 28% who firmly believe that he was and 21% who are unsure. The GOP birther majority is a new development. The last time PPP tested this question nationally, in August of 2009, only 44% of Republicans said they thought Obama was born outside the country while 36% said that he definitely was born in the United States. If anything birtherism is on the rise. 

No wonder the Republican leadership tiptoes so carefully around this issue.

What's more, the birthers really hate Mitt Romney:

among the 49% of GOP primary voters who either think Obama was born in the United States or aren't sure, Romney's the first choice to be the 2012 nominee by a good amount, getting 23% to 16% for Mike Huckabee, 11% for Sarah Palin, and 10% for Newt Gingrich. But with the birther majority he's in a distant fourth place at 11%, with Mike Huckabee at 24%, Sarah Palin at 19%, and Newt Gingrich at 14% all ahead of him. That pushes him into a second place finish overall at 17% with Mike Huckabee again leading the way this month at 20%. Palin's third with 15%, followed by Gingrich at 12%, Ron Paul at 8%, Mitch Daniels and Tim Pawlenty at 4%, and John Thune at 1%.

I think they can smell the inauthenticity of his attempts to appear like an unhinged right-wing lunatic.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

Show all 15 comments

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

15 comments

"I think they can smell the inauthenticity of his attempts to appear like an unhinged right-wing lunatic." Hahahahah Beautiful

- Jonas

February 15, 2011 at 1:11pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Well since according to Gallup, a majority of Republicans believe that the earth is under 10,000 years old and people put saddles on dinos and rode them around, nothing surprises me about the sheer idiocy of this group. In 20 years hopefully, demographics will have flushed them out of the body politic.

- MikeB.

February 15, 2011 at 1:14pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Does this mean that the majority of Republicans are ignorant un-hinged right-wing lunatics now? Instead of just seeming that way? If so, that makes this a GREAT time to raise taxes. Because if they're gonna both hate you and marginalize themselves no matter WHAT you do, you might as well do the right thing. And if they marginalize themselves enough, the Democrats AND the moderates will vote for rationality instead of crazy. Besides, two years after you raise the taxes is when the benefits overwhelm the negatives -- just like the ACA. Do it now, and by 2012 everything will be rosy.

- AllanL5

February 15, 2011 at 1:15pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I wonder if/hope that Romney will run with this and start pointing out how stupid birtherism is.

- Simon Greenwood

February 15, 2011 at 1:16pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Mind you, I really like true Republicans. People who want to preserve the Constitution, make incremental changes, preserve the Union, balance their budgets. It's the neo-cons and Tea-Partiers and the Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh Republicans I have a very hard time with. People who SAY they want to preserve the Constitution, then subvert it. They SAY they want to balance the budget, then cut taxes and start wars. They SAY they want incremental changes, then try to overturn Social Security. They SAY they want to support the President right or wrong, then accuse him of not being an American. That stuff I have a very hard time with.

- AllanL5

February 15, 2011 at 1:18pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Allan, If you have not read it already, I suggest you read Chait's book, "The Big Con." The GOP you are talking about started to rapidly decline 30 years ago, and we are left with what is by the standards of any reasonable liberal democracy, a joke of a party as regards to policy.

- MikeB.

February 15, 2011 at 1:22pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

So, Obama really might run against Michelle Bachman in 21 months? Wow! At least the end of the Republic will be entertaining.

- IowaBeauty

February 15, 2011 at 1:48pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Maybe Obama should ask Romney to be the new Health Czar, responsible for watching the ACA for the White House and liaising with the states. He's the one guy who has a clue about how if unfolds in reality, and if he hasn't a snowball in hell's chance of the GOP nomination, why not? It would be a real job, instead of whatever he's doing now.

- ironyroad

February 15, 2011 at 2:05pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

irony, Romney doesn't know Romney doesn't have a prayer. Only way Romney would take that job would be some time in a potential Obama 2nd Term, after he got his clock cleaned in a primary and he and his handlers decide he needs some "statesman" legacy burnishing.

- Crock1701

February 15, 2011 at 2:08pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

IB,, either that is a very bad joke or you entertain over-the-top fantasies. Sarah Palin would be much more likely to be nominated than would Michele Bachmann, but Palin won't come close to getting the nomination. And, just as a thought experiment, mind you, if MB were nominated, BHO's victory margin would probably approximate that of LBJ's in 1964.

- liberalref

February 15, 2011 at 2:29pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Oh, sure MikeB, I realize that. I'm just trying to point out my apparent anti-Republican point of view is not really anti-Republican, it's anti-Idiocy. That the current Republican party is pursuing idiocy is not something I support. I'm trying to pursue a "hate the sin, love the sinner" point of view.

- AllanL5

February 15, 2011 at 2:33pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Allan, I would love to have a conservative party in the US. Something like the Tories in the UK or Stephen Harper's Conservatives in Canada. We don't have that. We have a completely unserious once great party as the loyal opposition to the President. If we had a true logically coherent conservative party, I think America would not have to have a constant nightmare of what happens when this group gets in charge of the Presidency and the Congress. People like Warren Rudman and Gerald Ford are not welcome in the Party anymore.

- MikeB.

February 15, 2011 at 2:50pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

What I find so fascinating about the birther movement is that they continue to deny or refute the fact that Obama's mother was a citizen. Full stop. The idea that Obama being born in Hawaii or elsewhere in the world has nothing to do with it. My suggestion is to give these "birthers" be given the INS Citizenship test to qualify their own birthright as citizens. I suspect 99% of them would fail considering they wouldn't know half the questions or be able to square the facts with their perceptions of reality. http://usgovinfo.about.com/blinstst.htm

- singlspeed

February 15, 2011 at 3:09pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

We ran two terrible wars. We had a huge subprime mortgage crisis. The national debt is bigger than the planet. State governments are about to collapse. And every 15 years the Republicans have to impeach a democratically elected President.

- Nusholtz

February 15, 2011 at 3:30pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Your final phrase raises a complex meta-issue i.e. is a person who "inauthentically" attempts to appear like an unhinged right-wing lunatic in order to curry favor with the demented actually any more sane than someone who "authentically" is an unhinged right-wing lunatic? To put it differently, is a sane person who feigns madness because he wants to live in an asylum crazy or is he sane?

- lev

February 15, 2011 at 4:47pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

SHARE HIGHLIGHT

0 CHARACTERS SELECTED

TWEET THIS

POST TO TUMBLR

SHARE ON FACEBOOK

Close