Sometimes in a given day a delightfully strange string of things comes together to form a delightfully strange narrative. Today is one of those days.
A new batch of polls released in the wake of Election Day 2012 is rewriting a lot of things. First, a new poll from Quinnipiac University finds that Americans are getting more liberal on two social issues: marriage equality and the legalization of marijuana. A plurality of Americans now support marriage equality and a majority now support marijuana legalization according the Quinnipiac’s findings, a huge jump in just four years.
Public Policy Polling, on the other hand, found in their newly released poll that in the wake of President Obama’s decisive win on Election Day, some Republicans are trying to rewrite reality. The PPP survey found that 49% of Republicans believe that ACORN helped President Obama steal the 2012 election. One problem? ACORN does not exist anymore.
But the oddest thing buried in the PPP results is that more Americans oppose the Panetta-Burns deficit reduction plan–17% of them–than oppose the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan: 16% of them. The problem is, there is no such thing as the Panetta-Burns deficit reduction plan. Why would PPP include a question about a fake plan in its poll? As msnbc’s Lawrence O’Donnell put it in his latest Rewrite, “because PPP knows how to have fun.”
And speaking of deficit reduction, as part of a campaign to raise awareness for deficit reduction, former Republican Senator Alan Simpson (the Simpson half of Simpson-Bowles) released a video to encourage younger voters to get involved in the process using social media. The video, as we noted earlier here on the blog, included the 81-year-old former legislator dancing… “Gangnam Style.” And thus, the Circle of Life Political Weirdness is complete.
Nick Ramsey
Nick Ramsey is a senior producer with MSNBC’s “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell.” Recommended
