To listen to all the jibber-jabber on the news and in the blogosphere about how northside democratic voters are fleein' from Smooth in droves, you'd think the jig was up and that it's about time to turn out the lights on the campaign. However, as Charles Blow's Op-Ed piece ("A Backlash?") in the New York Times points out (a piece supported by actual historical data - imagine that) and satirically highlighted by Al Giordan ("Operation Anti-Chaos: The Narrative on 'White Voters' is Fiction") in the Huffington Post it appears the whole notion of 'White Flight' away from Smooth Barack in light of the Rev. J-Wright dustups and Smooth's admitted ill phrased and ill-timed comment that fueled 'Bitter-gate' is more political smoke and mirrors...Blow dug into national telephone polls conducted by The New York Times and CBS News going back to May 4, 2005 for Sister Hillary and January 21, 2007 for Smooth Barack (that seems to be all the data available on Smooth but it represents a time before and after his two most controversial episodes...). The polls measured registered southside Democrats opinion of Sister Hillary and registered northside Democrats opinion of Smooth Barack over those respective time periods.
The results? Southside favorable opinion of Sister Hillary has declined 36% and her Southside unfavorable opinion increase 17%. I can confirm those numbers based on my unscientific 'Basement Poll' of my homeys and homettes. What about Smooth? Based on the recent news, you'd expect to see similar or worse numbers yet there's been a 5% increase in Northside favorable opinion of him matched by a 5% increase in the Northside unfavorable opinion of him. Not only that, but as Sister Hillary's Southside favorable opinion continues in unabated freefall, Smooth's Northside favorable opinion, which had been trendin' down durin' the Rev. J-Wright maelstrom has now leveled off, which seems to imply that he's gettin' the benefit of the doubt from Northsiders while Southsiders are showin' little patience or tolerance for Sister Hillary's increasingly blatant attempts to highjack the nomination.The interesting thing about this political spin on 'White Flight' is that the pundits are lookin' at the northside Demographic that both campaigns knew wouldn't be votin' for Smooth in big numbers in the first place - less educated northside voters and older northside voters - two contingents where one could presume that race is a prevalent decision point. Does it mean that Smooth will have more work to do in the fall to woo those votin' blocks? Yes. Does it mean that northside voters are running away from Smooth Barack? No. But whose campaign does that impression help? Hmmm... And why are Sister Hillary's Southside numbers so bad? Hmmmm...
Shame, shame.
Peace@Least,
Tyrone
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