Obama Solid With White Voters, Clinton Not So Solid With Black Voters

Not everyone reads the NY Times, but today's the day to do so. Via Al Giordano, I caught this fascinating story and graph by Charles Blow, who published an important graph and analysis of NY Times/CBS poll data (Clinton's goes back to 2005 while Obama's goes back to Jan 2007.)

The question is this: Have white Democrats soured on Obama? Apparently not. Although his unfavorable rating from the group is up five percentage points since last summer in polls conducted by The New York Times and CBS News, his favorable rating is up just as much.

On the other hand, black Democrats’ opinion of Hillary Clinton has deteriorated substantially (her favorable rating among them is down 36 percentage points over the same period).

While a favorable opinion doesn’t necessarily translate into a vote, this should still give the Clintons (and the superdelegates) pause. Electability cuts both ways.

It's tough to summarize this better than Al Giordano:

So, to sum up: Look at the damn graphs. You can see that Clinton is in a staggering free-fall among African-American voters, her favorability is down 36 points while 17 percent view her more negatively than before, while Obama’s favorable and negative ratings among whites have paired at five point increases. You can even see the small dip - about two percentage points - in his popularity among whites that can be attributed to the news cycles about his ex-pastor, and see that it has leveled out and is now on a straight horizontal line (meanwhile, Clinton’s numbers among blacks continue on an extreme downward precipice). The greater context is that even including Obama’s slight dip, he’s more popular today among white voters than he ever was prior to February.

Not since Ronald Reagan has an American presidential candidate withstood such an assault in the media and seen his popularity not hurt by it, but, rather, galvanized by it. That’s what is meant, in politics, by the term "Teflon."

Those facts won’t stop many media (and Internet) talking heads from continuing - whether out of gullibility or intentional dishonesty - to prop up the "white voters" narrative, but it ought to inoculate you, kind reader, from believing it.

I have been writing for some time that the polling hasn't moved much despite the bloviating from broadcast media, especially. In that, it reminds me of Iraq. It seems some opinions have simply already been made, and while the talking heads may get palpitations over a minor issue, the voters don't care because they see the big picture.

Your/our job as political junkies is to understand what's going on, and just because the so-called pundits don't always do their job is no reason for us to avoid doing ours. This remains a fundamentally difficult election for Republicans, and the media's zest for Democratic conflict stories doesn't change that one bit.