The terrible things those "self-identifed" Republicans think...

... according to a Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll. Yes, we have to stop first and wonder how good are the Daily Kos/Research 2000 pollsters. I picked up this story at Talking Points Memo, where there's no information about why I should trust this poll. How did they locate their 2,000 "self-identified" Republicans, who, TPM tells us represent "the psyche of the minority party's base"?

And I know that plenty of conservatives won't call themselves "Republicans." I'd like to see a poll that delves into the reasons people who call themselves "Republicans" choose to call themselves "Republicans" and why others reject the label, despite being conservative.

Also, I wonder if some people who aren't conservative at all lie to pollsters — especially a poll with a lefty name like "Daily Kos" — so they can skew the results and give those folks the results they imagine the poll is designed to produce: that non-liberals are evil/stupid.

Nevertheless, let's read the results of this poll:

• 39% of Republicans want President Obama to be impeached.

• 63% think Obama is a socialist.

• Only 42% believe Obama was born in the United States.

• 21% think ACORN stole the 2008 election -- that is, that Obama didn't actually win it, and isn't legitimately the president, with 55% saying they are "not sure."...

• 53% think Sarah Palin is more qualified than Obama to be president.

• 23% want to secede from the United States.

• 73% think gay people should not be allowed to teach in public schools....

• 31% want contraception to be outlawed.

Wonderful anti-Republican PR results. They justify the fears people who are not Republicans have about the Republican Party. I don't like thinking people are this extreme, and I wish I could see how the questions were worded. The full survey (and the questions) were not out at the time TPM put up this post, and releasing the results in this form reinforces my suspicion that the motivation of the poll is to generate anti-Republican PR.

How would you word questions to ask "self-identified" Democrats if it were your goal to generate anti-Democrat PR? How would you smoke out all the flaky and stupid suggestions they'd go along with if a pollster offered it in a rational-sounding form and didn't interject amazement at the answers? Then how would you reword the questions to publish the results to make the best propaganda for your side?

(I once submitted to a poll where I was asked various questions about abortion rights, and the pollster started coming back with "Really?" and "Are you sure?" in a shaming way that made it obvious they were trying to get people to say they supported laws restricting abortion so they could attack some politician — probably Russ Feingold. It was really unprofessional!)

ADDED: Here's the Kos post announcing the results of the poll. It begins with this mind-boggling sentence: "As I've mentioned before, I'm putting the finishing touches on my new book, American Taliban, which catalogues the ways in which modern-day conservatives share the same agenda as radical Jihadists in the Islamic  world." It turns out this poll was designed to help him with that theory.

How independent and reliable is Research 2000?