Here's an idea for the Obama campaign -- in addition to TV ads and rumor-debunking websites, ask your canvassers (and anyone else who is an Obama supporter and willing to influence their friends, neighbors and co-workers) to ask the rumor-spouters where they heard the rumor in question.  And then ask them to ask the source of the rumor for the source's own source.  And so forth.  Do it courteously, so you aren't hectoring people and making them defensive, but just keep asking where they got the information.  Remind people (with some humor) that there is a lot of stuff on the Internet that's pretty dubious -- ask a voter (especially an older voter) if he or she ever saw any of this in the hometown newspaper or the local TV news (and if not, why not)?  This will have the benefit of making people feel like they are smart for exercising a little skepticism, and will sow more doubt about the rumors than a hundred "Truth Squad" websites ever could.

These rumors are un-debunkable. Because you can try to euphemize it all you want - call 'em low information voters or whatnot - but it seems clear that these people will latch on to any rationalization at all to excuse themselves from having to vote for an African American.

emigdio is right, its not that people believe information they get from people the know and trust, its that they believe what they want to believe.

Um, so Jason, you're saying there's not one Obama fan in this town that people will trust that will offer the counter point and help debunk these rumors (I find that hard to believe,. but it might be so)?  A couple of suggestions then:  Work hard enough to find a trusted spokesperson.  If there truly are none, bypass the town and fight those battles in those towns where there are willing local debunkers.

As you suggest, it's quite difficult, if not impossible for outsiders to change a local mindset once it's formed an opinion.

Let me add to my first post that the Obama campaign, if it's as organized as some have suggested, should be relying on [what's left of] the local party representatives for help; representatives that are known to the locals and trusted.

It seems odd that you've described them as going it alone without local party help.

The problem with the "Obama is a secret X" rumors is that, by definition, they cannot be debunked by evidence from Obama or his associates.  The response is always "well of course he'd say he's not a secret Muslim/Israel hater/terrorist; that's because it's a *secret*."  The rumors are like McCarthy-era accusations of being a secret Communist, but without an identifiable source.

Also, I still find it baffling that people can bring up Wright while still maintaining that Obama's a Muslim.

This reminds me of the late George Carlin's comment (paraphrased):  "You know how stupid the average person is?  Well, by definition, half of all people are even more stupid."  That the same person would imply that BO is Muslim and also attack him for his Christian pastor proves the point.  They are indeed just looking for a hook to hang their racists hats on.

"Also, I still find it baffling that people can bring up Wright while still maintaining that Obama's a Muslim."

I think that's exhibit A that these rumors are just cover for plain old unacknowledged racism.

With attitudes like that Pollard twit, I marvel that the US became so prosperous and powerful.  Then again, with the decline of the US in the past decade or two it all becomes more clear why it's happening.  Sigh.

What on earth does "he's going to bring his family over illegally" mean?  This is either scary ignorance or a fear of change that's reached the level of a pathology.

Obama's life story has been explored in every newspaper, on every TV channel, both network and cable and in both news and comedy shows, on every radio station, and in every magazine from here to kingdom come for the last eight or nine months.  I find it hard to believe that people are simply responding innocently to rurmors.  It's far more likely that they are scouring around for justifications for not voting for him that offer a thin cover for their own racist feelings -- or, at least, confused feelings about a lot of things that begin to converge on the idea of Obama like iron filings on a magnet.

One of the Democrats annoying habits is the learn the wrong lesson from each election.

Are we at a point where John Kerry might be vindicated for his response to his Swiftboat ads in 2004? (Excuse me, ads formerly known as Swiftboat.)

The conventional wisdom 2004-2008 has been that Kerry would be president today if he had just responded quicker to the negative attacks. But with Obama, the rumors seem to have gained currency the more he tries to dispute them.

According to this NY Times op-ed, (www.nytimes.com/.../27aamodt.html), that's because your brain tends to forget the context of how you learned something over time. So if you first heard that Obama is a Muslim by some friend at a bar, and then later remember reading something about Obama and Muslims, it all molds into this vague idea you have -- it's well-established that Obama is a Muslim.

(However, I should point out that I DO distinctly remember that I first learned of Obama in these very pages.)

What was left out was that Pollard was sodomizing one of his sheep as he was saying this. This is a town called Flag City USA because the yokels one up each other over how many flags they have, I am sure the most passionate among them have it sticking out of their asses. This is an old town stuck in the 50's, to think they are somehow representative of anything but a bunch of backward dolts is silly. Most of the town will be dead in 15 years, and the inbreeding will kill off the rest.

Sometimes I think that the next major conflict in the United States (Civil War 2) will be a battle to the death between the moderately intelligent and the aggressively stupid (with the latter proclaiming Confederacy-style their constitutional right to ignorance).

Are people like these likely to vote for a Democrat anyway? Were they going to vote for Hillary if she'd won? I doubt it.

Start with a large group of guilt-ridden wanna-bes (e.g., a sizeable chunk of the American people). Add in a decade or more of spending like drunken sailors thanks to the silly stock market and hilarious housing bubbles, followed by the current collective killer hangover. Sprinkle in looks from our kids that translate, roughly: "Loser."

Okay, now this guy comes along. He's smart, handsome, upwardly mobile--in short, everything most of the American electorate wants to be, but isn't. He has written not one but two wildly popular books about himself, which is two more than roughly three hundred million Americans will ever write, before they sink into eternal obscurity. And now he wants to be President of the United States.

He could be the second coming of Christ, and the American people would create and spread vicious, unsubstantiated rumors about him. Rumors are as American as obesity, credit card debt, and road rage. They are part of the ecology. Spray around the nest of the "Obama is a Muslim" rumor and, sure, you might silence all of those particular whispers. Within 48 hours or so, however, opportunistic "Obama has Hep C" or "Obama is on bin Laden's speed dial" assertions will be crawling in, soto voce, from the apartment upstairs.

Eli Saslow's finely reported and dutifully balanced Washington Post front page piece on Findlay,