Once again, MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell probes into polling data to figure out why John McCain is so close to Barack Obama in Gallup Daily Tracking Polls (4 points) while George W. Bush's approval ratings are so low.
When she asks her guest why, he goes on to further elaborate on how poorly the GOP brand is doing compared to the Democratic Brand. Who do you want in Congress? Democrats of course.
After a fairly lengthy speech, Andrea Mitchell points out that this fails to answer her question, but she offers a few numbers:
When people were polled on whether the country is on the wrong track, they responded.
Right Track: 14%
Wrong Track: 84%
For a poll on whether John McCain would change direction, the producers waited until the end of the broadcast to kinda-sorta flash up the actual numbers behind McCain so quickly I wasn't sure it actually happened.
Yes: ... (I don't know)
No: 68%
A clear preponderance of people think this country is doing badly and that John McCain won't help.
And she poses her question again, "Why is Barack Obama not doing better?"
The answer? She says, "We see that he has trouble with women, in particular white women." He adds, "Well, Barack Obama has always had a problem connecting to these blue collar voters."
There is only one problem with those theories. Barack Obama, according to MSNBC's own polling, is winning all of these groups. In the case of women, this is a handy lead (52%-33%) -- granted, you can go into the statistically indefinite white "suburban" women group, but this increases your margin of error to +/-9.34%, completely eliminating the difference.
Only two groups give John McCain an advantage: 1) Republicans and 2) a group which has gathered handily behind John McCain and, indeed, the Republican Party for generations: white men.
Now, I will not get into an angry tirade against white men. Much of this is generational more than it is gender or race, and I have no idea how much makes how much. I do know that Barack Obama was competitive among white men in the Democratic Party (and won them in dozens of states) and to get 35% of the white men vote when less than 50% of white men are Republicans is a decent run.
It is not as if Andrea Mitchell lacked the answers already. Let's ask one of NBC's pollsters, Peter D. Hart, if the white male vote has something to do with this:
Obama trails McCain by 20 points, 55-35 percent. "That is the reason why this election is close," Hart notes.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
Wow, that was easy. Maybe when Andrea Mitchell had him on her show last week she could have taken ten seconds out of her broadcast to ask him. That is, unless she already knows.
So, why would Andrea Mitchell ignore the obvious answer to a question her network had the numbers on? Why was it okay to point out that white people were winning white men in the Democratic Primary up until the point when Barack Obama won white men and to act like every state in which he did not was a refreshing new example of his campaign self-destructing?
And why is it only now okay to pretend that Barack Obama has a problem with white women even though he does not?
I only target Andrea Mitchell because she was there. I have little doubt that Dan Abrams, Chris Matthews, and Joe Scarborough will be right there behind her asking the same questions over and over again.