Public Policy Polling finally polled belief in infamous conspiracy theories. Releasing the report yesterday,  some of the results are quite amusing:

-6% of voters believe Osama bin Laden is still alive;

-28% of voters believe a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through the New World Order;

-13% of voters think Barack Obama is the anti-Christ;

-14% of voters say the CIA was instrumental in creating the crack cocaine epidemic in American inner cities;

-15% of voters say the government adds mind-controlling technology to TV broadcast signals;

-5% believe exhaust seen in the sky behind airplanes is actually chemicals sprayed by the government for sinister reasons

And, finally, the coup de grace:

-4% of voters believe that “lizard people” control the nation by gaining political power.

Apparently 38% of Romney voters believe in the New World Order.

Granted, the poll only sampled 1,247 registered voters through automated telephone interviews. 

Jamie Weinstein reported on the above this morning.

Something about the lizard poll intrigued me; 10% of self-described “very liberal” respondents said they believed it, while 11% of “very conservative” voters said the same. Only 3% of moderates and 3% of “somewhat conservative” people agreed.

I wonder if there is a correlation between political extremism and kookiness. One survey in one poll of approximately 1,000 people doesn’t indicate anything, but at least I have more faith in the moderates now.

Ultimately, this entire project strikes a blow in my hope for popular democracy. Clearly the Founders knew what they were doing.