This past week at a private event in which many members of the GOP were in attendance former New York City mayor, Rudy Giuliani, said something that a vast majority of Americans have felt for several months. Many of them coming to that conclusion late in the life of the current administration, and some–far fewer–have felt Giuliani’s observations for more like the duration of Obama’s time in office.
“He does not love America. (Obama) doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.”
To press him on the issue Fox News Chanel’s Megyn Kelly had the mayor on the following evening asking him directly if he’d like to apologize.
The mayor doubled down.
“Not at all. I want to repeat it,” Giuliani said. “The reality is, from all that I can see of this president, all that I’ve heard of him, he apologizes for America, he criticizes America. … This is an American president I’ve never seen before.”
Obviously the political parties were vested in making political hay of the remarks as quickly as possible, so firm condemnations from DNC spokespeople, the White House, and leftist media issued “toughly worded” and ominous warnings of the doom of the GOP if they didn’t “move past this kind of rhetoric.”
All I wanted to know was how the public heard the remarks.
So for my radio show on Friday across media airwaves I asked the question, took calls and tallied the reactions of the calls that both got on air–and as best we could the ones that did not as well. (These listeners crossed 500+ radio stations in addition to a few cable/over-the-air television networks.)
I asked if people felt the same way Mayor Giuliani did about the President.
76% of the respondents agreed that they personally feel that the President does not love this country (at least not the way they do.)
24% of the respondents disagreed and felt the President does love, and express love for the country.
We also tracked as best we could the ethnicity of those responding.
54.5% of those who agreed with Mayor Giuliani were White or Non-Identified.
31.8% of those who agreed with the mayor were self-described African Americans.
13.6% of those who agreed with the mayor self-identified as Hispanic.
Those who disagreed…
57.2% were self-identified as African American.
28.6% were White or Non-Identified.
14.2% were self-identified as Hispanic.
We also tracked sex…