NBC's Mitchell: Pennsylvania and Ohio Are Racist

April 28th, 2008 11:11 PM

Near the end of Sunday's Meet the Press, NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell boldly stated that racism has been a "real factor" in the Obama vote on the ground in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Apparently, because many voters are racist, they have a "willingness to believe totally erroneous things about Obama," like he didn't put his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance. (Ahem, Andrea, there's photographic evidence of that "totally erroneous" charge.)

Let me just say something from being on the ground in Pennsylvania and in Ohio. I think racism is a real factor here.  I don't think it's being polled correctly because I don't think it can be polled correctly.  I think it is what you see in some of his failure to connect with a particular sector of the electorate.

And I'm not sure how you get your arms around it, but I think it is a real issue that there is a resistance to him on some level in the electorate, and you hear these things from voters when you talk to them.  "Oh, I heard that he's not really a Christian." "Oh, well, he didn't, you know, put his hand over his heart." All this willingness to believe totally erroneous things about Barack Obama, which begins to congeal, and I think it's a problem.

(Hat tip to A.J.)