Election Coverage: Thin Gruel Leaves Me Hungry

It’s all well and good that Obama has increased his margin of victory by 12.3 percent among left-handed Armenian pick-up truck driving dog owners, but could we ever possibly do an exit poll or primary night post mortem about what issues are influencing the voters?

Hey, inside the beltway know it alls! I’m talking to you.

Yes, I know polls show the economy and the war and health care top Democratic voters’ list of concerns. It might be instructive to connect the dots between the issues that are important to voters important and the choices people are making when they cast their ballots.

Making broad generalizations based on demographic categories offers a convenient means for parsing the results, but people don’t walk into the voting booth and say, “I’m young and well educated so I must be for Obama, but wait, I’m also Latino, so that must mean I should vote for Hillary. What to do, what to do?” It’s more like, “I want to end the bitter partisan battles in Washington DC and I think Barack’s the guy to do it or Hillary’s health care plan would cover me and the economy was good to me in the 90’s so I’m for Clinton.”

So, chattering classes on MSNBC, CNN, NPR and yes even FOX, give us some analysis that actually links the election results with the concrete details of exactly what we’re trying to “change.”

I double dare you.