So the HART RESEARCH ASSOCIATES/PUBLIC OPINION STRATEGIES Study #14463
June 2014 NBC News/Wall Street Journal Survey prompted Chuck Todd to announce that the Obama Presidency is over. Well I, for one, would welcome a little help from my friends in continuing to bat down journalistic malpractice. As I view this as akin to asking Paul Wolfowitz for advice on what we should do about Iraq (or Syria or Palestine or Egypt or anything else but his privately owned 7-11 store).
In that interview on Morning Joe with the Raggedy Ann and Andy of morning TV and the requisite Bushie as part of the "very serious people" that they tap into, the data point that was cited in the Survey was this - The poll also found a majority, 54 percent, no longer believes that Obama "is able to lead the country and get the job done."
Now - I understand that such a polling result is fully reflective of the "pox on all your houses" viewpoint of the electorate at this point in our history. And it is especially reflective of the view of the American people given the inability of Washington DC - with its gridlock and partisan hackery (cough, cough, McCain, Graham, McConnell) - to get almost anything done without shutting down the government or bringing up Benghazi.
But riddle me this Todd-man - can someone please look at this with a bit more nuanced eye for detail and see what the poll would look like without the Confederate states included in the sample? I mean if - sans Alabama, et al - such a sample result were to turn the polling results on their head (i.e. reverse the conclusion) for the other 42 or 43 states (I will graciously excise Virginia, Florida Texas and leave a contiguous swath of States from North Carolina to Louisiana / Arkansas), I think that would be fairly noteworthy as we make such sweeping statements that the Obama Presidency is over.
Because as a Stephen Colbert parody would undoubtedly say with far more wit than I - for those 7 or 8 states - somewhere around 90% of the white christian, hobby lobby, chik filet and cracker barrel patronizing population in those states would say that the Obama Presidency was over on January 20, 2009 - the day it began.
Just sayin'.