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14
Mar
08

Smears Working? 13 Percent Of Voters Believe Obama Is A Muslim (Updated)

By baratunde
Categories: Election 2008 and Social-Political Tags: .

cross-posted to Jack & Jill Politics

Faith in Public Life has this out:

FOFPL Steve Benen brought my attention to a new poll (PDF) showing that the rumors about Barack Obama being a Muslim are having their intended effect. Thirteen percent of respondents to the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released today said Obama is a Muslim, up from eight percent who held that belief in March.

When I first saw this blog post, I was all fired up and ready to go! I had my ammo ready to launch at ignorant voters and bigoted Republicans and cynical Clintons, but a closer look at the data reveals something more nuanced.


and the raw numbers


First, the margin of error is +/- 3 percent.Second, the number that moved the most wasn’t those thinking Obama was a Muslim, but those declaring they weren’t sure what his religion was. This number collapsed from 70 percent to 44 percent. The bulk of folks just don’t know about Obama’s religion.Within this 26 point swing, 19 percent conclude correctly that he’s a Protestant, and 5 percent more now think he’s a Muslim. It’s not clear from this survey if those who think he’s Muslim assume that to be a problem, but other surveys have found that half of Americans would be “less likely” to vote for a Muslim as president. (yes, that links to AlJazeera with the article from the Nation)

What’s disappointing is the slow creep of these numbers. Of course most Americans didn’t know about Obama’s religion. He wasn’t a truly leading candidate until late February, and most folks are busy, tired, heavily distracted and poorly informed by mass media.

As the number of people who “know” what his religion is grew, is it a problem that 20 percent of these (5 points out of the 26 point swing) got it wrong? And who’s to blame?

I expect exploitation and bigotry from a subset of Republicans via email smears and shameless attack groups. Many of them have nothing better to do and lack the faith in their own ideas to do anything but play off fears of other faiths.

I did not expect and will not accept it from my so-called friends in the Democratic Party. Shame on you, Hillary, for leaving any ounce of doubt about Obama’s religion and for failing to “reject and denounce” such a smear against Islam in the first place.

We are in a crucial period in this election season. As this survey shows, many people still don’t know about Obama, and that ignorance will be exploited actively and passively by foe and friend. Let’s set the bar of discourse higher and stop playing to the fears of- and expecting so little from the American voter.

Updated 3:55pm ET.

First a super quick note: I don’t think it’s an inherent smear to label someone a Muslim, but when the populace sees it as a risk and something to be avoided, it is a smear on multiple levels. It insults Islam and it insults the candidate who is not Muslim. That’s all on that.

Now my real reason for updating…

The best part of posting a blog just before takeoff is that you get hours to let it sit in your head. Something was unfinished about my analysis, something important left unsaid. It came to me when a friend saw the 80 percent “newly certain” group believing Obama was Protestant. She saw this as hopeful. 80 percent is a clear majority. I see it as dangerously inconclusive.

Here’s the danger.

70 percent of people in December 2007 had no idea what Obama’s religion was.

Since then 26 percent have come to a conclusion, and 20 percent of those have come to the wrong conclusion. This could be good, or it could be bad. We need to wait for the next version of the survey to come out.

But here’s the real rub, and the reason I’m worried. It works in politics to try to define your opponent, and what we have is 44 percent of the electorate with no clear definition of Obama’s religion (and for many, this means his loyalty, patriotism, etc). He is very vulnerable to being defined by these underhanded tactics, and there’s no way I can rest easy on this point.

After all, John Kerry and Max Cleland both had strong public definitions as veterans and war heroes, but somehow they were both defined as cowards, traitors and unpatriotic exaggerators. This happened to men about whom there was little to no uncertainty! Imagine what a cynical manipulative mind could do with the remaining half of Americans still very open to Obama on this religion question.

This is why Hillary’s failure to categorically set the record straight about Obama’s religion is so dangerous. She, more than almost anyone, knows how the GOP especially loves to use this define-your-opponent tactic, and she’s acted in a way that not only says she’s fine with it, but part of it.

Viewing 8 Comments

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    Baratunde! Please don't call it "smears" - misinformation / disinformation, fine. But its not shameful to be Muslim!
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    • v
    Hey Baratunde, thanks for discussing my post. I came out blazing on this because the increase in Muslim i.d. is evidence that the madrassa/Obama/Manchurian candidate stuff is working. The increase in proper identification is positive, but that's a separate matter. The bottom line, in my eyes, is that dishonest religious bigotry is being used as a weapon and, secondarily, it's making a difference, if only a small one.

    Thanks again for taking the time to comment on my post. Come back and take another look some time. I'm glad I found your spot, and I just subscribed to your feed.
    • ^
    • v
    Of course there's nothing shameful about being Muslim, but it's the intent and plausible deniability at play here. The intent of those who invoke Barack's middle name or suggest he's Muslim are playing to fears of Muslims, fears that many will simply not even try to research.

    When caught, most of these people will state, correctly, that there's nothing wrong with being Muslim, and that one should be proud of their religion. The problem with this statement is its context of plausible deniability. It further casts doubt on Barack Obama's religion, and by extension, his truthfulness on the subject, his truthfulness on other issues, and more insidiously, his loyalty and where it's placed. By not explicitly denying these lies, anyone confronted with this question contributes to the damage caused by the doubt created. It is malicious and the antithesis of the type of politics Barack Obama, and even John McCain (who similarly won't tolerate this kind of disinformation about Obama), represent.
    • ^
    • v
    One should also consider the fact that he has an Islamic-sounding name. To someone who has no idea what religion he is, it is not a great leap to assume he may be Muslim. Not all the percentage points in these polls should be attributed to deliberate attempts to confuse.
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    • v
    However, it should be recognized that Obama (or, for that matter, Clinton) is not putting his denomination front and center in his communications.

    Compare this with Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Jimmy Carter, John F. Kennedy, and Al Smith. In this five cases, the candidates' religious beliefs were either emphasized by the campaign itself and/or were well publicized by the media.

    Obama falls into the same category as Gerald Ford on the topic of religion - it's important to him, but he doesn't spent a lot of time talking about it.

    With reason. Just as there is a segment of the population for whom Islam is inherently evil, there is a segment of the population for whom religion itself is inherently evil. I just blogged about, among other things, the attitude of a writer at Internet Evolution:

    "Historically, people generally tend to become less religious when they are more educated and wealthy, and access to the Internet provides many with a gateway to escape physical, mental, or geographical boundaries. It remains to be seen whether this tendency will continue as technical globalization enriches regions of the world that were formerly impoverished."

    When you have people with these kind of beliefs, it's no wonder that Obama isn't pushing the United Church of Christ every chance he gets, or that Clinton isn't waving the United Methodist cross and flame at every rally. Better to have people think you're a Muslim and be wrong, than to have them think you're a Christian and be right.
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    Thank you so much for doing this. BTW I follow you on Twitter, and I just now saw your Media Matters link. Wasn't sure you'd get my @ reply, so leaving comment here instead (hope that's cool) to share link you might find useful (which, ahem, I should probably update as you have updated this one): The Bias About the Bias. In it, I examined all available articles at Media Matters on biased coverage of the Democratic candidates for a specific time period (February 2008) and compared both the quantity and specific types (e.g. specifically racist versus specifically sexist) of bias found against Clinton versus against Obama. The results, quite honestly, surprised me, because I had been hearing from so many of my sister white feminists that Obama was the "media darling" of the two (ad nauseum). The facts simply didn't sustain that notion. (Although, to be sure, there has been a massive and completely unacceptable amount of bias against both candidates in this season, and both Clinton supporters and Obama supporters, IMO, need to step up a lot more often to condemn the bias against both candidates.)

    Anyway, I appreciate your work and look forward to reading more (have linked to both this site & Jack & Jill Politics). Have new posts in the works and will definitely be returning here for resources and references.
    • ^
    • v
    I live in Texas, where anyone who follows the campaign knows by now that we had a primary AND a caucus. I also do not think it's shameful to be a Muslim, but that's not what people here were saying. While I was waiting in line to caucus, several older ladies (age 60-plus) in line began talking about the election and how Obama is going to ruin this country because he won't salute the flag and he won't ever directly say he's a christian. I told them it wasn't true and that they are believing propaganda put out there to discredit him and split the Democratic party. Of course, they did not believe me and they said they know he's just waiting to get into office and will bring all his terrorist friends over to blow up the country. Then they pointed at all the black people in line and said "I see they all showed up and don't really know who they're voting for."

    They were a little shocked when they saw this white girl walk over to the dark side. ;-)

    These racial discussions are really bothering me because my son is starting to see it at school. Middle school kids are making racist comments about Obama being too dumb to be president and insulting other black kids in school, including my son, who is biracial. There was a huge fight last week in school where several kids were suspended for fighting. It saddens me that while on one hand, this election is showing such progress in our country, on the other hand, it's setting us back and showing that we might not have progressed much at all.

    Sorry for writing a novel in your comments but this was a good post and exactly on point with what I've been thinking for the past several weeks.
    • ^
    • v
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