The Austin American Statesman, a daily bird cage liner and Cox News product, chose to print this headline and story on the front page today above the fold. It starts like this:
White votes elude Obama
Primaries show a breakdown in support along racial lines.
By Steven Thomma
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
Thursday, April 24, 2008
WASHINGTON — If the Democratic primaries are a guide, Barack Obama has a problem among white voters.
and continues with....
(more below the fold)
statements like:
Some think he could do better winning white votes in the fall because white supporters of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton would rally to him rather than to Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
Others, however, say his job would get harder, that he'd never get the support of some Democrats and perhaps other whites who haven't voted in the Democratic primaries. That would compound the historic challenge that any Democrat faces in winning whites in a presidential general election — where no Democrat has won a majority of the white vote since Lyndon Johnson did in 1964.
As far as I can tell, the writers want us to believe that Obama is required to win more white voters than Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton if he wants to win.
And then they start beating the drum of white racism and fear as if that would decide the next president of the US.
More than one in 10 whites in Pennsylvania this week said that the race of the candidate was a factor in how they voted — and they broke for Clinton by a margin of 3-1.
A WHOPPING 10% of white Pennsylvania voters are scared of skin color. Big friggin' whoop de doo! They are not numerous enough to swing the vote, though they might scrape their knuckles walking around.
In Texas, a notoriously racist state, more than 1.3 million voters chose Obama and thousands more are still moving through the caucus process on his behalf (which he is winning by a large margin).
Please let The Statesman and let Cox know what you think about this ridiculous, inflammatory, biased, attempt at journalism.
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