Needs No Further Explanation

Or perhaps more precisely, I couldn't provide any explanation. This just seems to capture something perfectly.

Republican Fondness for Conspiracy Theories

The folks at Public Policy Polling asked Americans about conspiracy theories. As it turns out we like them. And curiously, folks who voted for Romney are more likely to believe in a good conspiracy theory than are the folks who voted for Obama.

Here's a table showing the ratio of Romney to Obama supporters who believe in a particular conspiracy.

	Voted For
Conspiracy	Obama	Romney	Ratio
Believe Global Warming a Hoax?	12	61	5.1
Believe Obama is Anti-Christ	5	22	4.4
Believe in lizard people	2	5	2.5
Believe in New World Order	16	38	2.4
Believe Sadam was involved in 9/11	19	36	1.9
Believe UFO Crashed at Roswell?	16	27	1.7
Believe govt spreads chemicals thru plane exhaust	3	5	1.7
Believe pharma and med invent new diseases to make $	11	17	1.5
Believe govt controls minds thru TV	12	18	1.5
Believe in Bigfoot	12	15	1.3
Believe McCartney died and was replaced	4	5	1.3
Believe Vaccines Cause Autism	19	22	1.2
Believe in JFK conspiracy	47	54	1.1
Believe aliens exist	28	28	1.0
Believe govt adds fluoride for sinister reasons	8	8	1.0
Believe Moon Landing was Fake	6	5	0.8
Believe govt allowed 9/11 to happen	13	8	0.6
Believe CIA spread crack in inner cities	17	10	0.6
Believe Bush misled on WMDs in Iraq	69	18	0.3

Voters come together on a belief in aliens and the government adding fluoride for sinister reasons.

They are sharply divided over whether global warming is a hoax and whether Bush misled on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. (Note that the question is not whether the science on global warming is dubious or incomplete: 61% of Romney supporters actually think global warming is a hoax that scientists are perpetuating at the expense of innocent oil companies, politicians, and talk radio personalities.) That seems predictable given politics.

It's less clear why Romney supporters would be about twice as likely to believe that a UFO crashed at Roswell or in lizard people.

The fact that Republicans are more likely to cozy up to a good conspiracy doesn't prove that the GOP platform is carefully crafted to appeal to the interests of average Americans while helping only a select few. Then again, if you could prove such a claim it wouldn't be much of a conspiracy, would it?

Dubya and the Space Aliens

33% of Americans believe that George W. is doing is good job.
37% of Americans believe that aliens from outer space have contacted the US government.

This may just be the new definition of poor performance: more people believe that you're communicating with extraterrestrials than believe that you're doing well.