Finding the Dark Cloud -

Finding the Dark Cloud - Not to use up a whole day talking about Steve Perry, but I had to touch on this bit from his blog that involves some of the most creative digging for encouragement I've ever seen:

A Gallup poll released over the weekend shows that black America continues to oppose this war, and by a striking margin: 68-29. Maybe you've already heard as much. But here's another detail from the same poll that few have mentioned: The $30,000 a year income threshold is a major breaking point, too. Above that level, 78 percent of all Americans now say they support Bush's war; below, only 58 percent. Still a majority for Bush, but a tenuous one,

Whoah!

Leave aside, for now, the fact that Americans who earn over $30K support the war by a 4-1 margin, by Perry's own data.

According to Perry, Americans who earn less than $30K, the ones to whom Perry and his paper constantly depict as a seething cauldron of anti-establishment frustration, support the administration by a 3-2 margin.

When a political campaign ends with a 3-2 margin for a candidate, it's regarded as a drubbing. A landslide. A politcal and statistical degüello.

Suddenly, according to Steve Perry, the fact that Bush has a 20 point lead among low-income Americans is "tenuous"?

Leaving aside the fact that all all polling numbers are transitory (vide George 41); if one is to believe the spin that Perry et al put on class relations in America, this number is utterly inconceivable!

How could this be?

and it's not likely to get better as the economy keeps on stagnating or sinks lower.

Well, Mr. Perry will have to just hope, won't he?

Posted by Mitch at April 2, 2003 01:15 PM