Posted by Jed Lewison on Mon Jun 30, 2008 at 2:01 AM Pacific

The WaPo does a little meme pimping

Today's Washington Post has another one of those "ZOMG, there's rumors about Obama" stories.

You already know the basic script: a Real American Town (tm), flags on every front porch, apple pie in all the windows, Leave it Beaver playing softly in the background. Just how the beltway punditocracy sees "middle America." And of course, Barack Obama has got a problem: those dang internet smears. Without even reading the article, you can pretty much guess the way the story went; we've seen a million of these before.

What interested me about this particular article was that it failed to mention one crucial fact about the town in which it was set (Findlay, Ohio, the seat of Hancock County): whether or not any Democrat could expect to do well there.

Not surprisingly, it turns out that the Findlay and its surroundings are actually pretty bad areas for Democrats. Here's numbers in Hancock County (I only got my hands on 2004 data for Findlay itself, but there wasn't a significant difference in the numbers):

  • 1992: Bill Clinton won 25%
  • 1996: Bill Clinton won 31%
  • 2000: Al Gore won 29%
  • 2004: John Kerry won 29%

So all the sudden, what WaPo implied to be a crucial issue for the Obama campaign no longer seems nearly as important: nobody should be surprised that in heavily Republican areas, Barack Obama isn't all that well-regarded.

It's hard, therefore, to escape the conclusion that the only reason the WaPo published the article was to continue pimping false rumors about Barack Obama.

At the same time, it did include one stunning piece of information that almost makes the article worthwhile: it turns out that even in Findlay, Ohio, the Obama campaign actually has a small but organized volunteer presence in the town.

In other words, Barack Obama is already organizing in towns where John Kerry couldn't even get 30% of the vote. Now that is nothing short of remarkable.

The WaPo does a little meme pimping

Today's Washington Post has another one of those "ZOMG, there's rumors about Obama" stories.

You already know the basic script: a Real American Town (tm), flags on every front porch, apple pie in all the windows, Leave it Beaver playing softly in the background. Just how the beltway punditocracy sees "middle America." And of course, Barack Obama has got a problem: those dang internet smears. Without even reading the article, you can pretty much guess the way the story went; we've seen a million of these before.

What interested me about this particular article was that it failed to mention one crucial fact about the town in which it was set (Findlay, Ohio, the seat of Hancock County): whether or not any Democrat could expect to do well there.

Not surprisingly, it turns out that the Findlay and its surroundings are actually pretty bad areas for Democrats. Here's numbers in Hancock County (I only got my hands on 2004 data for Findlay itself, but there wasn't a significant difference in the numbers):

  • 1992: Bill Clinton won 25%
  • 1996: Bill Clinton won 31%
  • 2000: Al Gore won 29%
  • 2004: John Kerry won 29%

So all the sudden, what WaPo implied to be a crucial issue for the Obama campaign no longer seems nearly as important: nobody should be surprised that in heavily Republican areas, Barack Obama isn't all that well-regarded.

It's hard, therefore, to escape the conclusion that the only reason the WaPo published the article was to continue pimping false rumors about Barack Obama.

At the same time, it did include one stunning piece of information that almost makes the article worthwhile: it turns out that even in Findlay, Ohio, the Obama campaign actually has a small but organized volunteer presence in the town.

In other words, Barack Obama is already organizing in towns where John Kerry couldn't even get 30% of the vote. Now that is nothing short of remarkable.

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