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LIFESTYLE

43% See George Washington As Greatest Founding Father

As America prepares to celebrate its 235th  birthday, a plurality of adults still sees the nation’s first president as its greatest founder.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of American adults shows that 43% say George Washington is the greatest founding father of our country, up 11 points from last year. Thomas Jefferson comes in second with 24% who see him as the greatest founding father, followed by Benjamin Franklin with 16%.

Just five percent (5%) see both John Adams and James Madison as the greatest founding fathers. (To see survey question wording, click here.) LINK

Washington has been at the top of this list since 2006.

Just over half of adults (54%) believe the United States is a nation with liberty and justice for all. Thirty-eight percent (38%) disagree and say this founding principle is not true. These findings are nearly identical to those found last year.

Still, 79% of adults say that, if they had a choice to live anywhere in the world, they would still choose to live in the United States. Thirteen percent (13%) would not choose to live America if given the choice of living anywhere in the world. These findings are also little changed from past polling.

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The survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on June 27-28, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

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