I don't know if you caught this over the weekend, but Atrios has been all over it:
First, the Washington Post runs a story on a poll which states the rather obvious point that if Obama and Clinton are the nominees, they will be smeared as "liberal" and hurt down-ticket Democrats:
While the average lead of Democratic House members stands at 19 percentage points in the 31 vulnerable districts -- all but two of which are part of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's incumbent-protection program known as Frontline -- that number sinks considerably when the lawmakers are linked to either front-runner.
"Some people say [your Democratic incumbent] is a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton and will support her liberal agenda of big government and higher taxes if she becomes president," the poll stated, before asking respondents whether they would still vote for their incumbent or choose a Republican candidate.
Whether the question named Clinton or Obama, the Democratic incumbent's lead shrank to an average of six points: 47 percent to 41 percent with Clinton leading the ticket, 44 percent to 38 percent with Obama as the nominee.
"The images of the two early favorites are part of the problem," Lake and Gotoff wrote. Clinton has a "very polarized image" in the districts, while Obama's "image is soft, and one-fifth of voters do not have a firm impression of him."
However, the Post didn't bother to mention that Celinda Lake was Joe Biden's pollster -- a salient point, don't you think?
What's worst, the press outlets that dutiful took Biden's bait and used this poll to trash the top two Democrats in the race didn't even get the most obvious conclusion one could draw from the poll. Bowers:
Obama is more popular in these districts than Clinton (or at least less disliked), and yet the exact same message has exactly the same impact on local Dems whether he or Clinton is the nominee. The conclusion that should be obvious for anyone with even a modicum of analytical ability is that Clinton and Obama are irrelevant in the question, and that the message, in a vacuum, will have the same impact no matter who the Democratic nominee is.
Biden, bereft of a real campaign with real supporters, has been reduced to this? Classy.
One more point -- did Lake really run this poll without including her client's name? Did she ask how Biden, when smeared as a scary liberal who wants higher taxes, would affect downticket races? You'd think she would.
That they didn't release those results is quite telling, further reinforcing Bowers' point.