Bush v Gore, Birther/Truther statistics

In reply to: Divided We Stand United We Fall: Racism increases 67% since January
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I don't know, mw...

As far as the birthers=truthers theory, I have problems with both the question--There's a difference between believing that the Bush administration had prior warning about the fact that AQ was likely to try something sometime soon that they should've paid more attention to, and believing that Bush left DC on 9/11/01 because he knew the planes were coming. I have a feeling that there's a whole lot more of the former than the latter, although both qualify as "Bush knew...".--and the fact that Rassmussen tends to skew conservative (almost as bad as Luntz, these days.) All one need do is compare Rassmussen results with the results of other polls on the same subject to see that Rassmussen tends to lean right a bit more than the others. ((Yeah, I know you didn't cite the rassmussen poll, but there aren't that many selling that 1/3 of democrats = truthers result.)

Second, even accepting that one third of each party is extreme enough to accept one or the other of these theories, there is also the amount of positive attention that the elected officials of each party are willing to bestow on each theory. How many elected "truther" Democrats can one name? (The only elected "truther" I can find is Ron Paul, and he never said/suggested they were right, just that investigations in the name of truth were a good thing. And of course, he's a registered Republican.) How about elected "birther" Republicans? (How many Republicans signed onto that unnecessary bill saying that candidates must show their birth certificates--like the one Obama released, one assumes? 12, is it? How many more have made statements questioning Obama's birth?)

As for Bush 2000, all one need do is read the consortium report, and skip all the scenarios--(Bush wanted only these counties recounted, Gore wanted only those counties recounted, only over-votes, only two or fewer-corner chads)--except the most important one; when all the votes in which voter intent could be discerned were counted (the standard under law, at the time) in each precinct, who won?
Gore won, but shit happens... At this point, it's old news.

Anyway... Carter & whoever else is making the argument--(Is there much of anyone else?)--is wrong. There's some racism out there among those who don't like/agree with Obama, but most of it is about policy (or partisan political, at least) disagreement. (Personally, I'm more worried about those who echo their political "teammates" rather than thinkin' for themselves... ...and yes, that happens left and right, & probably in about the same proportion...)
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Submitted for approal 9/19/09, 11:23 AM (DWS blog time)