Drudge Misleading About Hillary's Plight (Hold Front Page!)

Here's a shocker - Matt Drudge has a misleading Hillary-bashing headline:

POLL: OBAMA TAKES LEAD AMONG WOMEN IN MD, VA

That links to this American Research Group poll showing us that, as advertised, Obama does lead among all women.  But this is not news - in South Carolina, as I strain to remember that far back, Obama carried the female vote by 54-30.  Why?  He won among black women by 78-20 but lost among white women by 42-22 (Edwards also got 36 percent of the white women).

Folks have been wondering whether, with Edwards out, Obama can top Hillary among white men; her "unshakable base" has been white women, and it would merit a headline if Obama led in that demographic.

So does he, in the latest ARG poll flagged by Drudge?  They don't provide that specific cross-tab, but eyeballometric inspection or a bit of spreadsheet tom-foolery says "no".

Here we go: 

In Maryland, Barack Obama leads Hillary Clinton among men 58% to 32% (42% of likely Democratic primary voters) and Obama leads Clinton among women 53% to 42%. Clinton leads Obama among white voters 51% to 39% (59% of likely Democratic primary voters) and Obama leads Clinton among African American voters 81% to 16% (38% of likely Democratic primary voters).

Well - this year Clinton has always done better among white women than among white men; if she leads among all whites, we can be sure she leads among white women.

However, Hillary's slight lead over Obama among the slightly larger white group is more than offset by his much greater strength among the slightly smaller black group; hence, his overall lead, both in the overall result and among women.

It does appear that the "0 for the rest of February" scenario mentioned a few days back is developing nicely, with resultant hard times for Hillarity. 

Comments

[clarice]

My husband who dined last night with a Texas Rep reports back that there is a substantial effort underway in that open primary for lots of Reps to vote for Obama.

I think this is the last time we'll see such a truncated and too early primary season.
Just saying.

[cathyf]

I dunno, clarice -- it looks to me like the primary system actually worked better this time than ever before. At least if you take seriously the serious-sounding complaints that people have made over the years. Rather than having a few oddball states settle everything in the first few weeks leaving most of the country to watch from the sidelines because their chances at the polls weren't until weeks/months after it was all over, we've seen an actual primary battle on the democrat side, with every state so far mattering. (Well, ok, MI and FL matter in a different way.) On the republican side, it looks like there could have been a much better race with a better group of politicians (the whole timing question of how much to campaign in what places was basically bungled by everyone but McCain, which is why he is the presumptive nominee.)

And realistically, imagine how it would have been under the old system. Obama would have won Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, and that would have been it. So where is the Clinton incentive to go back to the old way?

And from a totally practical point of view -- MI and FL went ahead with their too-early primaries even at the price of their delegates. I can say that here in Illinois (especially the part of Illinois that gets Iowa tv stations) we kinda liked the whole process of having a primary that mattered, rather than watching our neighbors pick for us. So which states are going to volunteer to give up their super Tuesday slots and slink back to April/May/June irrelevancy? I think that bell can't be unrung at this point...

[Anon]

cathyf

Well basically it wasn't much of a question about where to campaign for McCain he had been campaigning in New Hampshire for the past eight years and cultivating Lindsey Graham for about the same amount of time.

It's really that simple. He focused like a laser beam on those two states for eight years.

That was pretty hard to beat-he really earned turn. The establishment had to pick him.

[MBrace]

I always find it interesting which pictures Drudge decides to post. He usually will pick pictures that cast a person in a certain light. His preferences are transparent.

[windansea]

or a bit of spreadsheet tom-foolery says "no".

toot sweet

lets get reckless..