In an article in today's New York Times, Adam Nagourney reported on new polling purportedly showing that racial attitudes remain unchanged by Barack Obama's campaign and that the Illinois Senator is struggling to appeal to white Americans. We even highlighted it in the Early Bird, assuming the analysis was fundamentally fair. But as the folks at Obama headquarters have noted, what Nagourney left out was just as important as what he included. Via TPM, which received a detailed critique of the piece from Obama's press camp:
"The NYT story about their poll ignores multiple and significant pieces of data that actually indicate a trend much different from that which the story suggests."
The campaign offered some "straightforward points from their data" that were omitted from the story. Among these factoids:
More white voters say Obama cares about people like them than say the same thing about McCain by 31 to 23 percent.
Obama's 31 percent favorable rating among white voters is virtually identical to McCain's 34 percent level.
White voters are more likely to say that Obama would improve America's image in the world by a two-to-one margin over the Republican nominee.
Obama is winning by six points against McCain while he only trails among white voters by nine points --- a margin smaller than independent expert on voting patterns, Ruy Texiera, said would give Obama a "solid win."
As Talk Left points out, the key finding in the poll should have been McCain's ties to the Bush economic polices. Sixty-three percent of respondents said McCain would continue that agenda, while only 20 percent said they approve of it.
Post new comment