July 31st, 2009 at 8:03 pm

On that "shocking" birther poll

You’ve probably seen that Research 2000/Daily Kos poll making the rounds today, the one that finds hilariously large quantities of Republicans and southerns expressing openness to birtherism. The data is pretty striking.

It’s provoked a lot of discussion all over the liberal blogs about how Republicans are a regional party that’s coming increasingly unmoored from reality. Well, no kidding. But — sorry to rain on the parade — this poll isn’t such a good indicator of that phenomenon, from a survey research perspective. In fact its descriptive value of birtherism is nearly zero.

Remember, most people in the U.S. have probably never heard of this particular conspiracy theory (Lou Dobbs’s radio audience doesn’t exactly rival the NFL). I doubt 90% of the American population has ever given so much as a thought to Obama’s birth certificate, and for good reason. This is a tiny, lunatic fringe belief.

But if most people have never heard of the topic at hand, how do they answer questions about it? Public opinion research has shown consistently that survey takers almost never skip questions no matter how uninformed they are (and whether or not an option to say “I don’t know” is presented). As a rule, respondents just guess, using whatever contextual clues are available to them. They will reduce the question to analogies and terms they can relate to, which in survey research are called heuristics. So in this instance, a respondent unfamiliar with birtherism will parse the question roughly like:

Do you think Barack Obama (something basic to his character)?

And they will answer the question based on that heuristic. Now most people, regardless of their opinions of Obama politically, will probably grant at least that he’s a carbon-based lifeform with a verifiable lifestory, intellect, and conscience; but there’s a small hard core of conservatives who mistrust the President implicitly, and will either respond reflexively in the negative to anything whatsoever that involves him, or will consciously and forcefully express doubt about any available element of his humanity and honesty. (This is not dissimilar to the way many of us on the left readily argued that George W. Bush was both a coked-out fratboy moron and a nefarious scheming dictator-in-waiting, simultaneously.) Of course this group of snarling partisans is concentrated overwhelmingly in the Republican Party and in the areas where extreme to-the-bone conservatism is most socially acceptible, i.e. the South. That’s the source of these disproportionate “Not sure” and “No” responses.

It has almost nothing, then, to do with birtherism specifically. There’s no material difference between asking people “Do you think Obama was born in the U.S.?” and asking “Do you think Obama tips 15% and likes adorable baby animals?” Or perhaps “Do you think Obama is a werewolf?” You will get comparable results no matter what, perhaps minus the tiny proportion that actually knows and believes the birther theory (and I conjecture that those people would immediately be “werewolfers” too, given the opportunity).

So take this as a reminder that public opinion data shouldn’t be taken at face value when you’re discussing obscure ideas. Republicans may be extremist and isolated, yes, but this particular poll isn’t evidence that they’ve come unhinged.

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(Sorry for the light posting this week, btw. Been a tough few days at work. Here to compensate is an absurdist comic:

More Garfield Minus Garfield here.)

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UPDATE: Julian Sanchez writes a much more erudite version of this argument, calling the poll’s outcome “one more species of exaggeration in political rhetoric.” Worth reading if you’re interested in the topic.

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