On tonight's "CBS Evening News", Dean Reynolds took Obama to task for having, well, a campaign event involving his family.
At a picnic in Noblesville Barack and Michelle Obama made like Ward and June Cleaver in a big photo op of family fun.
Stripped of context, that's not all that troubling. Obviously he's implicitly accusing Obama of insincerity, of being a typical politician. The "Leave it to Beaver" analogy is a popular one, as well.
But where does Mr. Reynolds pivot from here? Well, next in the package is a brief sound bite from Obama. And then, the next very next words out of Reynolds' mouth after mocking the Obamas for mimicking the Cleavers ...
All this week, Obama's has been touring factory floors, chatting with steel workers, meeting with farmers, and visiting with senior citizens, all mostly white. At big rallies like this one in North Carolina last night, where black faces predominated in the crowd, whites formed the camera-friendly backdrop for viewers at home to see.
Obama needs the white working class voters now more than ever, not only to win on Tuesday but also to convince those superdelegates that he can win over those voters in the fall general election and that nominating him will not be a risk.
This could just be poor juxtaposition. He is person covering a fast-moving presidential campaign in a five minute TV news package. But as it stands in the package aired by CBS News, we have a pretty unmistakable narrative:
- The Obama family is pretending to be the Cleavers.
- Obama is mostly talking to white people.
- The Obama campaign is artificially whitening its crowds.
So what, exactly, is Dean Reynolds saying?