Friday, July 31, 2009

Same poll, different headlines...

It all depends on how you count the undecideds.

According to Talking Points Memo's Eric Kleefield:

Poll: 28% Of Republican Base Are Birthers.

A new Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll finds that 77% of Americans believe President Obama was Indeed Born in the United States, with only 11% saying he was not -- but there's no clear verdict among Republicans.

Among Republicans, it's a much weaker plurality of only 42% who say Obama was born in the U.S., with 28% saying he was not, with a very high undecided number of 30%. Among Democrats, the number is 93%-4%, and among independents it's 83%-8%.

But Huffington Post (which, when in doubt, will always spin things to the extreme) left it like this:

New Poll: Less Than Half Of Republicans Believe Obama Was Born In U.S.

Less than half of Republicans believe that Barack Obama was born in the United States of America, a new public opinion poll finds.

Only 42 percent of Republican respondents in a Research 2000 survey, conducted for the liberal website Daily Kos, said they thought Obama was a natural born citizen; 28 percent said they did not believe Obama was born in the United States; 30 percent said they were not sure.