Attitudes toward ACORN by GOP are kinda nutty

In case you missed it, the funniest polling numbers of the year came out earlier this week when Public Policy Polling reported their post-election findings among disgruntled Republicans.

In a very measured tone, the PPP report said this:

“Forty-nine percent of GOP voters nationally say they think that ACORN stole the election for President Obama. We found that 52% of Republicans thought that ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama, so this is a modest decline, but perhaps smaller than might have been expected given that ACORN doesn't exist anymore.”

That’s right, ACORN, the left-wing activist group that was demonized by right-wing talk-radio and repeatedly accused of voter registration fraud, disbanded in 2010. But they’re still the whipping boy for uninformed Republican voters.

The PPP survey also found that the anti-Obama online petition drives that showed support for secession, particularly in the Red States, were not a manipulation. The poll showed that 25 percent of Republicans would like their state to secede, and another 19 percent aren’t sure.

Some other interesting results:

* Since the election PPP has seen a 5-point increase in voters who identify themselves as Democrats, up to 44 percent, and a 5-point decrease in Republican identification, down to 32 percent.

* Voters narrowly trust President Obama over congressional Republicans (48 to 45 percent) on the issue of Benghazi, Libya, and the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate there. That suggests the unrelenting GOP criticism aimed at Obama and UN ambassador Susan Rice aren't getting much traction.

*Grover Norquist is largely unknown nationally and the number of Americans familiar with the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan isn’t much higher. As for former CIA director David Petraeus, who was hailed by Republicans during the Bush administration as one of the greatest U.S. generals in history, he is now seen much more favorably by Democrats than Republicans after his sex scandal.