RALEIGH – Conspiracy theories never die. They just fade away, very slowly, and only after changing their appearance repeatedly in response to changes in information, motivation, and desperation.

As recent events have demonstrated, some on the Right continue to be fascinated with various theories purporting to show why Barack Obama does not meet the constitutional prerequisites to be president of the United States. Some of these theories will live on despite the release of the long form of Obama’s Hawaii birth certificate, just as myths about the Kennedy assassination, fake moon landings, Elvis sightings, and the accuracy of the New York Times have continue to persist despite copious evidence to the contrary.

Some of the Left are also prone to perpetual anguish over imagined conspiracies. They question the legitimacy of the election of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney – not just the controversial election in 2000 but also their 2004 reelection, supposedly stolen from John Kerry and John Edwards by skullduggery in Ohio (if so, thank goodness).

Behind every conservative cause, legislative victory, or political success, they see the hands of shadowy corporate villains. They elevate barely known kooks into conservative “leaders” so the Left can ascribe evil intentions to the movement. And some on the Left still suspect that Bush, Republicans, corporations, Zionists, or perhaps all these villains working in tandem brought down the World Trade Center and made al Qaeda a convenient scapegoat to justify their neo-imperialist designs on the oil of the Middle East.

To liberals of a more Earth-bound sort, who allege that American conservatives are especially prone to conspiracy theories, I respond, “prove it.” Conspiracy theorists are wildly popular in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, selling millions of copies of books and filling the airwaves with feverish allegations of 9/11 conspiracies and such. Left-wing fantasists have also plied their trade in America for years, to great effect.

Yes, some polls show a significant minority of Republicans doubting that President Obama is a native of the U.S. (Perhaps some simply lack a clear understanding of the territorial status of Hawaii in 1961, by the way, which is unfortunate but not exactly loony.) But back in 2006, a poll by Ohio University tested the extent of public support for several other conspiracy theories:

• Nearly 40 percent of respondents, and more than half of Democrats surveyed, said it was “very” or “somewhat likely” that Bush and other federal officials either perpetrated the 9/11 attacks or allowed them to happen to justify a war in the Middle East.

• About 40 percent of respondents also said they suspected “officials in the federal government were directly responsible for the assassination of President Kennedy” and a similar percentage said that “the federal government is withholding proof of the existence of intelligent life from other planets.”

Rather than engage in the same kind of “Republicans are all just dumb birthers” or “Democrats are all just dumb truthers” rhetoric that we’ve been treated in recent years by partisan hacks, I’ll offer what I consider to be a fairer and more accurate assessment of the popularity of conspiracy theories among American voters.

Somewhere in the neighborhood of one-third to one-half of Americans seem to be willing to give some credence to conspiracy theories when talking to pollsters on the phone. How much of that is sincere and how much of it is mocking or silly is far from clear. It is likely, however, that a significant percentage of poll respondents who express some belief in conspiracies to strangers over the phone are kidding.

Partisan hackery aside, there does not appear to be large differences on public credulity based on partisan affiliation, at least after adjusting for other differences. That is, younger people and those with less education are somewhat more likely to believe in conspiracies, and they are also somewhat more likely to be Democrats, but that doesn’t mean that being politically liberal necessarily correlates with being overly credulous about conspiracy theories involving political personalities or issues.

Being politically liberal does correlate with being credulous about fairy tales of various kinds, but that’s a subject for another day.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.