Aaron,
Tell me, do you always use media polls to inform your positions on issues? You know, those famously rigorous, structured polls designed by talented, top-of-the-class statisticians applying accurate (ahem!) sampling methodologies? If you do, I have some exit polls from the 2004 election to sell you.
The broader point holds: Obama’s intimate association with a racist pastor spouting a racist ideology matters. Your link didn’t work, so I couldn’t access the poll to find out when it was presented, but this issue isn’t over. What the poll didn’t capture is that most people have heard of Wright but they haven’t actually seen him in action, or heard audio of his sermons, except in mostly truncated soundbites. You can bet the GOP (and McCain supporters in the general population) are going to remind everybody at every opportunity, when possible, and appropriately so.
Why don’t you find a poll that reflects the views of whites specifically, and how they feel about Wright-Obama when they’ve SEEN Wright’s speeches, not just heard about them. Better yet, why don’t you construct a poll of people who have been read a summary of Black Liberation Theology, then play a Wright sermon, then tell them how close Obama is to Wright, then ask them how they feel aobut Obama, because in essence that exact scenario, in one form or another, will play out for many people before the general election.
So like I said, you go on convincing yourself that it doesn’t matter. That’s exactly what I want you to do.
By the way, since you claim this issue is not an issue, why has Obama tried to distance himself from Wright? According to you there’s no there there, and yet the candidate himself tends to disagree.
What are you going to believe, a poorly designed ‘snapshot’ media poll, or a candidate whose behavior reflects his access to properly designed internal polling which professional campaigns use to inform their strategies?
(Speaking of research, whites make up 67% of the population, but 75% of registered voters, and 80+% of people who actually vote. Just a 1% shift in that group from Obama to McCain is massive, and more than makes up for a +10% shift in black votes for Obama. If the shift is 1.5-2% amongst whites the election is over. In case you hadn’t noticed, the dynamics of a general election are radically different from that of a primary. Candidates with “hate whitey” connections cannot win in the general, which is why the Democrat MSM tried so mightily to bury the Wright story.)
