Remember all of the talk about how Barack Obama had a unique difficulty attracting white voters to his camp? NBC News' First Read doesn't buy it. Combining the last two NBC News/Wall Street Journal polls to create one big sample (and thus larger subsamples with smaller margins of error), the folks at First Read note the following:

What's more on this front, we combined our last two NBC/WSJ surveys to get a larger sample of white voters broken down by age in the Obama-McCain match-up, and while Obama -- at this stage in the race -- outperforms Kerry and Gore among all white voters, the age group where Obama underperforms both Kerry and Gore is among white voters 65+. Obama trails McCain 54%-32%, which is nearly twice the deficit Kerry had at this point with Bush among this group (53%-40%). Obama, of course, does better among white voters under 35, which makes up for the older voter issue. [emphasis added]

Obama performs better than either of the last two Democratic nominees, one of whom one the popular vote, among white voters, but he is professed to have a problem with white voters? I think someone is going to have to explain this one to me...

Crossposted at Ich Bin Ein Oberliner.

Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again ... ."
Here.

This has already been written about ad nauseam. But it isn't this quote in particular that bothers me: it's the sentiment behind it.

Also, it was the last straw.

More on the flip.

As voters go to the polls today, it is worth keeping in mind some facts about West Virginia. Given that Hillary and company have made such a big deal about large states, it is fair to say that WV is not even a middle size state. Its population in 2006 is estimated at 1,818,470, far less than 1% of the U.S. population (closer to 1/2 of 1%). Its population grew at a rate of .6% between 2000-2006, while the US grew at a rate of 6.4%. Oh, and given Hillary's recent emphasis on hard-working, white Americans, you might be interested to learn that WV is 94.9. white.

For more see, the official state portal of WV, where they have US census figures. http://www.wv.gov/OffSite.aspx?u=http:// quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/54000.h tml

For more commentary on the election, http://msa4.wordpress.com/

It is time that feminists who have supported Clinton for the right reasons step up to the plate and criticize her for unacceptable remarks and practices. The women's movement has been deeply divided over the Clinton candidacy. Yet what started out as a legitimate disagreement about the merits of the candidates and their agendas has turned into a test of one's feminist credentials. But the test is perverse. It is not a test of feminist principles and values. It has become a test of loyalty to Clinton, in spite of the fact that she is undermining basic feminist values.

So much for the notion that Barack Obama is uniquely weak among White voters. New Gallup polling puts that theory to rest as well.

Barack Obama's current level of support among white voters in a head-to-head matchup against John McCain is no worse than John Kerry's margin of support among whites against George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election.

[...]

Kerry, the Democratic nominee in 2004, lost to the Republican Bush by a 51% to 48% margin in the popular vote. In Gallup Poll Daily tracking data from May 1-5, Obama is losing to McCain among registered voters by a 46% to 45% margin. Although there is a sizable component of undecideds in the Gallup Poll tracking data (and obviously no undecideds in the 2004 exit-poll data), the margins in these two races are quite similar, with Kerry losing by three points, and Obama by one point.

This overall comparison, in and of itself, suggests that Obama, assuming he captures the Democratic nomination, begins the general-election contest in roughly the same position in which Kerry ended his unsuccessful quest in 2004 -- that is, with the prospect of a very close race.

So at a point when Obama was getting hit as hard in the media (both paid and nonpartisan) as he ever has, attacked for his relationship with a neighbor (Bill Ayers) and his former pastor (Jeremiah Wright), Obama still runs about as well as did John Kerry, who only narrowly lost the last presidential election (give him 100,000 votes in Ohio or 100,000 spread across the Mountain West -- Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado -- and he would be in the White House today). For reference, Al Gore received 42 percent of the White vote in 2000, so Obama does not run too far behind him either.

Now it's worth pointing out that neither Kerry then nor Obama today ran or runs as well as the Democrats as a whole did in 2006. According to nationwide exit polling from the midterm House elections, Republicans only carried the White vote by a 51 percent to 47 percent margin. This is to say that there appear to be a whole lot of voters within this demographic who could find themselves amenable to voting Democratic in the fall if the party can figure out its key to success during the previous election. That said, the notion that Obama is a particularly weak candidate in regards to the White vote simply just does not play out in the data.

Odd that one of them was a Southern state that's in play for the General Election and for a Senate pick-up.

Using CNN exit polls, I've mimicked Jerome's front-page graph, which showed Obama's growing margin of victory among African-American voters over the course of the primary season. Jerome's post asked whether or not Obama's percentage of the white vote has been decreasing. Let's take a look...

Barack Obama has a big problem on his hands with White Working Class voters leading up to the primary contests in Indiana and North Carolina. He is faltering in his attempts to win over this all important voting block, and the impression this group has of Obama is getting worse every day.

In an ominous sign of the damage that has been inflicted on the Obama campaign, polls are indicating that White Working Class Voters which include Blue Collar Workers, are very disturbed by Obama's associating with the controversial pastor Rev. Wright, and his demeaning statements about "small-town" residents. Even more alarming then the remarks by Obama and his former pastor, is the perception by this voting block that Obama has failed to  address their concerns about job losses and the battered economy.

Terry Madonna, a political science professor at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., summed it up best when he said,"While it's incredibly motivating and passionate and compelling, it lacks content," Madonna said. "Hillary would come in and relate to them, talk about the specifics of her policy."

Keith Wolfe, 41, a supermarket food stocker from Parkville, Md., said in a follow-up interview,"It's the stuff about his preacher ... and the thing he said about Pennsylvania towns, how they turn to religion,I don't think he'd be a really good leader."

The exit poll is based on in-person interviews with more than 36,000 voters in 28 states that have held primaries this year in which both candidates actively competed

AP/Yahoo News Poll

Campaigning at Tennessee State University in Nashville (wasn't she there the night before?), Senator Clinton had this to say:

The second odd thing about Clinton's appearance came during that extended Q-and-A period when someone, late in the going, finally asked her to comment on the just-concluded South Carolina primary, in which Obama had trounced her by a margin of two-to-one.

After a perceptible pause, she began awkwardly: "I was honored to run in South Carolina... and it was very close...."

Very close?!  I think she's probably been reading too many MYDD posts!