o'mam - Uncertainty About Obama’s Religion Is Rising (WSJ blogs)

By Jonathan Weisman, Aug 19, 2010, Wall Street Journal "Washington Wire" at http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/
article source: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/08/19/uncertainty-about-obamas-religion-is-rising/

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Just as President Barack Obama returns to the campaign trail, a new poll shows rising uncertainty among Americans that he is a Christian.


The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that a growing number of Americans say they don’t know Obama’s religion, which is Christian. A shrinking number identify him as a Christian, and a small but growing minority believe he is a Muslim.


The findings, along with Wednesday’s Gallup tracking poll that showed Mr. Obama’s approval rating falling to 41%, underscores the liabilities the president carries as he picks up the pace of his efforts to save the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. The sense of “otherness” – that Obama was not connecting to ordinary Americans – dogged his presidential campaign, as questions and conspiracies swirled around his religion, his birthplace and his political associates.


“People have told us consistently they want religious politicians,” said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center, which conducted the poll of more than 3,000 Americans between July 21 and Aug. 5, before the blow-up over the proposed mosque and Islamic center near Ground Zero. “I think it’s an important element of how people see him, how he’s viewed personally.”


The Pew Center found that 34% of those polled said Obama is a Christian, down from 48% in March 2009, and 51% in October 2008, just before his election victory.


Eighteen percent said he is a Muslim, up from 11% in March 2009. And 43% said they didn’t know what religion he was, up from 34% in March 2009.


“Do you happen to know what Barack Obama’s religion is?’’ the survey asked. “Is he Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, agnostic, or something else?’’ The poll carried a margin of sampling error of 2.5 percentage points.


The percentage saying the president is Muslim is perhaps the least politically concerning, Kohut said. That group tracks closely with self-identified, conservative Republicans and Obama opponents. Thirty-four percent of conservative Republicans say the president is Muslim, up 16 percentage points since March 2009. Thirty-one percent of all Republicans say Mr. Obama is a Muslim, up 14 percentage points from March 2009.


The rising numbers of Americans who say they don’t know his religion – and the falling numbers who say he’s Christian – represent a much broader swath of the electorate. Last year, half of white Americans said Obama was Christian. Now it’s 35%. Last year, 56% of African Americans said he was Christian. Now, 43% do.


A White House official said the president’s political team is “operating in a very challenging environment where lies and misinformation have potential to take hold.” Americans are always more engaged during campaigns then afterward, he said, explaining the rising doubts about Obama’s religion. And he cautioned against putting too much stock in one poll, although he acknowledged Pew’s nonpartisan reputation.


In the latest Gallup tracking poll, 41% of respondents approved of Obama’s job performance, and 52% disapproved.


The White House is trying to re-engage Obama with voters, mixing high-priced fund-raisers with more homey events. Before fundraisers for Sen. Patty Murray in Seattle on Tuesday, the president huddled with small-business people at a bakery.


In Columbus on Wednesday, before a fund-raiser for Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, the president sat around the kitchen table of Rhonda and Joe Weithman, and their two children, Rachel, 9-years-old, and Josh, 11, discussing their economic travails.


He then held a roundtable discussion in the Weithmans’ sun-drenched back lawn with about 35 friends and neighbors sitting around picnic tables, the shingled home as a backdrop.


“This is a wonderful way of seeing who this person is as a real person,” Ohio Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, a candidate for U.S. Senate, said after the event. He blamed doubts about the president’s personal qualities on conservative television commentators “who pretend to be news people, trying to foist their opinions.”

• Poll: Growing number incorrectly call Obama Muslim
• White House Memo: In Defining Obama, Misperceptions Stick

2012, Elections 2010, Daily Electoral Vote

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