A quarter of Texans think that Barack Obama is a Muslim? // Current
“A University of Texas poll finds that in McCain-favoring Texas, 23% of voters believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim. This has been one of the campaign’s most bizarre issues. The first question this raises is: so, what of it, are Muslims disqualified from being president? The “Obama is a Muslim” issue started during the Democratic primaries–Politico wrote about it way back in October 2007. Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo calls all this “McCain’s Edge.”
This certainly must be frustrating for the Obama campaign, which has spent a great deal of time explaining to the public that Obama is Christian. According to the University of Texas Poll, Obama convinced 45% of the 545 registered Texas voters they asked that he is a Protestant. Has another candidate for president ever had to spend so much time and effort reassuring the public over religion? It’s enough to make JFK think that he had it easy over the Catholic issue.
Do nearly a quarter of Texas voters really believe that Obama is a Muslim? There’s another possibility: McCain supporters using badly conceived polls as political weapons. If you ask people in a hardcore McCain state, a good number of them will says “Yes, Obama is a Muslim” whether they believe it or not, just to get the idea that Obama is a Muslim out there. All’s fair in war and politics, after all.
Maybe “Is Barack Obama a Muslim?” just isn’t that great a poll question. If that’s the case, the 23% figure says more about inflamed passions in the final days of the race than it does about ignorance in Texas.”
I can’t believe people still think this!
A quarter of Texans think that Barack Obama is a Muslim? // Current