CNN Buries the Lede, Again: 52% Say Obama Doesn't Deserve Reelection

Only 44% say he does.

Newsworthy? CNN doesn't think so. They think the headline is...

CNN Poll: Anti-incumbent fever at record high

Anti-incumbent? Well... yeah. But who are the incumbents? Which party controls the White House and the Congress?

CNN waits until the eleventh paragraph to report Obama's quite-bad re-elect number.

And they bury other big findings too, in favor of their "anti-incumbent, not anti-liberal or anti-Obama" Narrative of Choice.

For example: Paragraph Seven.

The poll suggests Americans are split when it comes to their vote this November, with 47 percent of registered voters saying they will support the Republican candidate in their district for the House of Representatives and 45 percent saying they will back the Democrat. Republicans trailed the Democrats by 6 points in November.

This sudden reversal of Democrat fortunes is merely an "anti-incumbent" animus?

And note CNN is polling adults, and their screen only narrows the sample to registered voters, the most Democratic-friendly pool of respondents. Even with this generous sample, Democrats (and Obama) are faring poorly.

Also not reported at all: Obama is now officially underwater in the CNN poll, though within the margin of error: 49% approve, 50% disapprove.

Bonus: Where Does This Cheerleading for Democrats Come From?

*** Bye, Bayh: If we told you that Democrats were favored to lose about eight Senate seats (six of which are in states Obama carried in '08), lose some 30 to 40 in the House, and see their top domestic issue -- health care -- stalled in Congress, you’d guess that President Obama’s approval rating was, what, 35%? Maybe 40%? But as any close follower of American politics knows, Obama’s approval is at or near 50% (even at 53% in the always-volatile Gallup daily track). Yet Democrats, including what we saw and heard from Evan Bayh yesterday, are behaving like Obama is at 35%. This is particularly ironic when we’re just a year-plus removed from a president whose approval was 25% to 30%. There is no doubt that this is a TOUGH political environment for Democrats, but are they making it tougher by running for the hills when things might not be as bad for them as was the GOP’s situation from 2006-2008? And what does it say about the Democrats and their ability to govern when they’re acting like this when their president is at 50%? Republicans rallied around their president in '04, when he was hovering around 50%.

Obviously this is a stridently partisan paragraph, written with clear sympathies for the Democrats, offering fellow Democrats advice on how to govern and win elections.

So where would you guess it was from?

Kos?

FireDogLake?

Alec Badlwin writing in the Huffington Post?

Nope -- it's from MSNBC, which is apparently ditching the even the thinnest pretense of nonpartisanship.

Thanks for both to Slublog.

posted by Ace at 01:54 PM

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