Public Policy Planning reports the results of a recent poll:
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.
What this presages for the campaign for the Republican nomination for president is unclear. But it now seems leading Republicans, even relatively respectable ones, are eager to avoid unequivocally denouncing birtherism.
The current Republican tack is to say that while you personally take Obama’s word for it that he was born in the United States, or that he is not a Muslim, you won’t pass judgment on those who believe otherwise. Or you simply joke about it.
