I really, really hope that a lot of those numbers can be explained by intentional snarkiness towards polling. "Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer" seems like a fairly common human paradigm, so I tend to think that if you post a poll question that people don't really take very seriously, they are strongly tempted to provide an answer that just maintains or enhances the absurdity of the query.

Take for example the Greenpeace internet poll to name a tagged and tracked humpback whale. "Serious" names, that often had some linguistic or anthropological link to whales like "Aiko", "Kaimana", etc. got less than 1% of the total votes, and "Mr. Splashy Pants" got 78% (of 150,000+ respondents). I tend to doubt that 78% percent of respondents actually believed that was the best / most suitable name -- instead they liked the idea of promoting the more absurd / humorous option.

That can't fully explain away these numbers, and it is frankly tragic to think that anyone might actually believe that Obama "wants the terrorists to win", or "is a socialist". I think that the real direction that the GOP is taking is grim enough, but this poll doesn't really accurately describe its true failings -- and I should note that I say this as a registered republican who would really love for the party to return to some measure of sanity.