WND Poll: 80% don’t buy 2-citizen-parent Presidential eligibility requirement

WorldNetDaily released poll results yesterday showing widespread confusion over Barack Obama’s place of birth, in their article: Stunning Percentage Agrees with Sheriff Joe. There’s a lot of spin in the article about a poll commissioned by WND, and you can read it yourself, amid advertisements such as:

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However, what I found interesting, buried way down, is that despite an almost 3-year campaign, and claims that we were all taught it in school, only 1 in 5  of the 685 respondents said that US Presidents must have two citizen parents.

The WND/Wenzel poll also asked registered voters what they think natural-born citizen means. Half believe it requires being born in the U.S., and one in five believe it means that both parents must be citizens.

The scientific telephone survey, conducted March 10-13, has a margin of error of 3.72 percentage points.

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38 Responses to WND Poll: 80% don’t buy 2-citizen-parent Presidential eligibility requirement

  1. dianna says:

    Our constitution states the definition. Obama and his followers want 2 change the definitions of a lot of words. It is what it is!

  2. Considering the fact that Obama is President through an election certified unanimously by Congress and sworn in by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, I think that the time that happened he was most certainly eligible. It is those who claim otherwise who are trying to change the Constitution. (Note that the Constitution doesn’t define natural-born citizen, a term derived from English Common Law.)

    dianna: Our constitution states the definition. Obama and his followers want 2 change the definitions of a lot of words. It is what it is!

  3. jamese777 says:

    dianna: Our constitution states the definition. Obama and his followers want 2 change the definitions of a lot of words. It is what it is!

    What definition in the Constitution are you referring to?

  4. Greenfinches says:

    dianna: Our constitution states the definition

    Where? What does it say?

    inquiring minds want to know…………

  5. Sef says:

    I can see that some respondents could have been confused by this survey if they believed McCain was NBC and they knew where he was born. The survey was poorly worded.

  6. JPotter says:

    The scientific telephone survey, conducted March 10-13, has a margin of error of 3.72 percentage points.

    I see the problem right there! They always had better luck with the completely nonscientific, radio button polls. Why the change? Why suddenly poll registered voters by phone instead of passively poll their captive audience?

    Did they get tired of the snarky comments? 😉

  7. sfjeff says:

    dianna: Our constitution states the definition. Obama and his followers want 2 change the definitions of a lot of words. It is what it is!

    Dianna knows- she watched “National Treasure”

    It is written in invisible ink on the back of the Constitution.

    Duh!

  8. donna says:

    “telephone survey” means they DIDN’T POLL cell only users

    rasmussen does the same thing

    NOT POLLING cell only users OMITS over 25% of the population and leans RIGHT

    NOT EVEN fox polls landline only users – they switched away from the rasmussen polling co a while back

    fox poll: Anderson Robbins Research (D) / Shaw & Company Research (R) Interviews Conducted: N= 912 registered voters (706 landline, 206 cell phone)

  9. G says:

    I agree. To the extent that I find its results to be absolutely meaningless.

    Many folks out there will simply hear the different options and consider any of them to be valid, as from a certain perspective, they all are.

    Sef: The survey was poorly worded.

  10. JPotter says:

    G: I agree. To the extent that I find its results to be absolutely meaningless.

    SOP for WND polling.

  11. JPotter says:

    Sorry, “polling”.

    No, no, no, geez, typos are out of control today!

    “fishing”.

    There, finally got it right.

  12. Scientist says:

    I see several issues:

    1. Wenzel is not a first tier polling organization. In fact, I haven’t seen them poll other than for WND. The comments attributed to Wenzel certainly suggests they are totally bought and paid for by WND.

    2. All the other pollsters show Obama leading every Republican opponent. So, if Wenzel is correct, there are almost certainly a significant number of people who say they aren’t sure he’s eligible, but plan to vote for him anyway. This is not nearly as strange as it sounds, since they may not be sure his opponents are eligible either (especially since none of them have shown ANY documentation). Or they may simply believe that the eligibility criteria are outdated and just not a big deal (a position that I think many people
    actually agree with but might not be willing to say publically).

    3. The wording, as noted by many is very confusing.

    Much more, but that should do for now…

  13. Scientist says:

    One more point. Regarding parental citizenship the poll asks the respondents to speculate as to what the founders intended. “Original intent” is one doctrine for constitutional interpretation that happens to ba favored by Justice Scalia. By no means is it the only way to interpret the Constitution. I personally don’t agree with it and don’t feel that the Constitution must obligatorily be interpreted in 2012 to mean exactly what it meant in 1788. Judges are not required to ignore all thought since 1788 and pretend that the world has been frozen in amber since then.

    So, I could very easily answer X on what the founders intended and say Y on what the law is and ought to be today.

  14. Yeah, somehow I got distracted before saying that the wording is silly, but pretty much like other WND Polls. The “preferred” birther answer wasn’t even an option.

  15. BillTheCat says:

    dianna: Our constitution states the definition. Obama and his followers want 2 change the definitions of a lot of words. It is what it is!

    Wow, lined right up to be the first to comment with a lie eh? Kudos!

    Gotta love these armchair constitutionalists, who all seem to know better than actual historians and constitutional scholars, of course.

  16. Thrifty says:

    Birthers found a secret Constitution. Conveniently, they didn’t find it until after the election of a black Democrat with an unconventional name. After that it was retconned to be something that everyone knew all along.

    I’m suddenly reminded of one of my favorite quotes from the TV show “Parks and Recreation”.

    Tom: “I was born Darwish Sabir Ismael Gani, but I changed my name to Tom Haverford because a dark skinned guy with a funny sounding name doesn’t get far in politics. Okay Barack Obama, there’s ONE exception.”

    BillTheCat: Wow, lined right up to be the first to comment with a lie eh? Kudos!

    Gotta love these armchair constitutionalists, who all seem to know better than actual historians and constitutional scholars, of course.

  17. Suranis says:

    Actually its not a secret constitution, its the constitution of the confederacy

  18. It’s a Constitution with hidden articles and amendments. For example, written in invisible ink is the Gasoline amendment:
    “Every native-born American shall be entitled to an unlimited supply of cheap gasoline for life”

    Then there is the “Weird Name” amendment:
    “Any holder of a public office whose name includes anything that makes him sound like a Skeery Furriner shall be subjected to unlimited abuse, vilification and attempts to remove the person from office”

  19. Northland10 says:

    How can anybody possibly say this with a straight face.

    dianna: Our constitution states the definition.

  20. misha says:

    Thrifty: Birthers found a secret Constitution.

    No, dianna bought her version from the Western Auto catalog.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Auto

  21. US Citizen says:

    I’m not sure discount body armor is a good idea, but I welcome anything that takes RWNJ money.

  22. J. Potter says:

    US Citizen: I’m not sure discount body armor is a good idea,

    The MythBusters boys looked into paper armor …. don’t recall the verdict.Spent the night listening to the rain and watching Little House on the Prairie while managing a game of Galactic Civilizations. It was time for some brain bleach! I trust nothing is new in birtherland ….

  23. Suranis says:

    It worked pretty well until it the ice melted 🙂

  24. richCares says:

    along with that poll, WND is pushing a story with this quote in it “A friend whose identity I have forgotten pointed to a teenaged, thin fellow who certainly was Barack Obama and asked me: “Do you know that he is being groomed for the Presidency?”. This is their scoop on the Ayers & Obama sighting. Yah, scoop allright, scoop of bull pupu.
    .
    sure buddy, push that pay pal!
    do WND readers eat this stuff up (IQ of 33)

  25. richCares says:

    one way we could make money is sell WND readers email lists to South African scammers, I am sure they would pay a premium! After that we could sell the same lists to Gold Line.

  26. US Citizen says:

    Scientist: Judges are not required to ignore all thought since 1788 and pretend that the world has been frozen in amber since then.

    I agree, but we’re still caught under a lot of hardened saps.

  27. Northland10 says:

    J. Potter: The MythBusters boys looked into paper armor …. don’t recall the verdict.

    Plausible.

  28. Lupin says:

    Suranis:
    Actually its not a secret constitution, its the constitution of the confederacy

    It certainly reflects the founding documents of the KKK.

    I did a long post on the subject here once. It was to show that Mario’s language suspiciously echoed that of the KKK founders.

  29. Black Lion says:

    richCares:
    along with that poll, WND is pushing a story with this quote in it “A friend whose identity I have forgotten pointed to a teenaged, thin fellow who certainly was Barack Obama andasked me: “Do you know that he is being groomed for the Presidency?”. This is their scoop on the Ayers & Obama sighting. Yah, scoop allright, scoop of bull pupu.
    .
    sure buddy, push that pay pal!
    do WND readers eat this stuff up (IQ of 33)

    I saw that….

    WND EXCLUSIVE

    Postman: Ayers family put ‘foreigner’ Obama through school

    Claims he met young Barack who boasted he’d someday be president

    CHICAGO – Did the parents of former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers help finance Barack Obama’s Harvard education?

    [Google ad removed. Doc.]]

    Did Ayers’ mother believe Obama was a foreign student?

    And was the young Obama convinced at the time – long before he even entered politics – that he was going to become president of the United States?

    A retired U.S. Postal Service carrier who delivered mail to Tom and Mary Ayers in a Chicago suburb in the late 1980s and early 1990s and claims to have met Obama in front of the Ayers home emphatically says yes to all three questions.

    Allen Hulton, who was commended for 39 years of honorable service with the USPS, has given a sworn affidavit to investigators commissioned by Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff Joe Arpaio to determine whether Obama is eligible for Arizona’s 2012 election ballot. Hulton has recorded about three hours of video interviews with WND.

    Hulton says that in conversations with Mary Ayers while on his route he learned of the couple’s enthusiasm and support for a black foreign student. One bright, warm Chicagoland day, he recounts, he met the student who fit Mary Ayers’ description in front of the Ayers home in Glen Ellyn, Ill. That young man, Hulton is convinced, was Barack Obama.

    Hulton delivered mail to the Ayers, who are both deceased, when he was stationed at the post office in Glen Ellyn, an upper-middle class suburb 25 miles west of downtown Chicago, from late 1986 to 1997. He was a USPS employee from March 28, 1962, through March 30, 2001. (Editor’s note: Although the Ayers family no longer lives there, WND is withholding the Glen Ellyn street address for the sake of the current residents’ privacy.)

    “It was a beautiful neighborhood – one of the nicer routes any of the letter carriers would have liked to have had,” Hulton recalls. “It had some large and very beautiful homes.”

    As WND reported yesterday, Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers – whom he dismissed in a 2008 debate as “just a guy who lives in my neighborhood” – plagued him in the 2008 presidential campaign and could resurface in this year’s election, as many questions remain.

    Young Obama

    Over a period of years in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Hulton estimates he spoke with Mary Ayers about 18 to 20 times and once to Tom Ayers, who died in 2007. Mary Ayers died in 2000.

    “Sometimes Mary would be out when I delivered the mail, and we would exchange a few words on occasion,” he says, recalling that she liked to talk about her family.

    “One day, Mary came to the door when I came up to the house with the mail,” he remembers. “After a greeting, she started enthusiastically talking to me about this young black student they were helping out, and she referred to him as a foreign student.”

    Hulton assumed that by “helping” the student, Mary Ayers meant she and her husband were financially supporting the black foreign-exchange student with his education.

    more at WND…

    http://www.wnd.com/2012/03/postman-ayers-family-put-foreigner-obama-through-school/

  30. Jack Cashill has got some thing about an affidavit from Bill Ayers postman or something like that.

    richCares: along with that poll, WND is pushing a story with this quote in it “A friend whose identity I have forgotten pointed to a teenaged, thin fellow who certainly was Barack Obama and asked me: “Do you know that he is being groomed for the Presidency?”. This is their scoop on the Ayers & Obama sighting. Yah, scoop allright, scoop of bull pupu.

  31. It’s not a “WND Exclusive” since the article is over at the American Thinker.

    When my sons were children I taught them about frauds and scams online. I gave them the well-worn adage: “If it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t.” I think that’s a good one for the birthers in this case.

    Black Lion: WND EXCLUSIVE

    Postman: Ayers family put foreigner’ Obama through school

  32. Thomas Brown says:

    Utterly astonishing.

    All the Judges are mistaken about the Law, all the Documents are forgeries, you can’t trust the State of Hawaii’s Birth Records… but when it’s “I knew some Guy who told me his Mailman said he heard it from an Old Lady he claims was Mrs. Ayers that she was sponsoring some Black Kid who may have been a Foreign Student who looked like Obama…”

    Oh, yeah… stone-cold fact. Let the frog-marching begin.

  33. US Citizen says:

    Obviously the postman doesn’t always ring twice.
    Sometimes he knocks…. a President.

  34. JPotter says:

    Lupin: I did a long post on the subject here once. It was to show that Mario’s language suspiciously echoed that of the KKK founders.

    Nothing suspicious about it … these memes have been passed down along the fringe of the right since the Civil War and are a heirloom of the Old South. These are views that have been pushed (and rejected!) since the debates over the amendments following the Civil War, and probably existed prior. Terminology changes and ideas evolve. Even bad ideas are bulletproof.

  35. mbrown says:

    The definition of natural born citizen is not up for public debate nor is can it be changed via public opinion polling. It is settled law. The birther definition is their own fabricated subjective one, and it is NOT the legal definition. WND asking people for their opinion on an issue that has been extremely well settled, in court after court, is obviously meant to keep their ignorant readers upset over false concerns about Obama’s legitimacy. It is pure smear and utter nonsense. They may as well have been asking “Should a measured mile be 5,280 feet, or do you think that’s too far for people, like yourself, who cannot walk that far ?” Or “Water currently boils at 100 degrees C – don’t you agree that number is too high ?”

  36. JPotter says:

    mbrown: The definition of natural born citizen is not up for public debate nor is can it be changed via public opinion polling.

    Setting aside that physical realities are beyond human control and that law is under human control, that was hysterical! 😀

    mbrown +10

  37. Linda says:

    The whole two-parent theory, despite being wrong, just never even made sense to me. If that were true, where were all the Republican lawyers, scholars, judges, law students, members of Congress? Obama had already written two books and “confessed” his father was African. Clearly, a case of drug-induced mass amnesia perpetrated by the Obama campaign.

  38. G says:

    Well said! Kudos.

    mbrown: The definition of natural born citizen is not up for public debate nor is can it be changed via public opinion polling. It is settled law. The birther definition is their own fabricated subjective one, and it is NOT the legal definition. WND asking people for their opinion on an issue that has been extremely well settled, in court after court, is obviously meant to keep their ignorant readers upset over false concerns about Obama’s legitimacy. It is pure smear and utter nonsense. They may as well have been asking “Should a measured mile be 5,280 feet, or do you think that’s too far for people, like yourself, who cannot walk that far ?” Or “Water currently boils at 100 degrees C – don’t you agree that number is too high ?”

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