We seem to be developing a theme here...
There's been a consensus amongst the pundits that Obama will struggle to win the votes of Hispanics in the general election. This was based on the primary votes (most voted for Clinton) and on a general - sometimes implicit, sometimes explicit - perception that Latino voters would have a problem with a black candidate. But as Chuck Todd points out today, the conventional wisdom looks to be wrong:
In addition to our recent NBC/WSJ poll, which showed Hispanics breaking for Obama 62%-28%, a new survey of 800 Latino voters from 21 states finds that 60% of them plan to vote for Obama versus 23% for McCain. That is down considerably from the 40%-plus Bush received in 2004. It’s no longer fair to say that Obama has a problem with Latino voters; McCain does. This was a case of conventional wisdom that was never based on fact, just semi-informed speculation based on primary exit polling and bad stereotypes of Latinos.
It's not that Obama doesn't have any electoral problems; he clearly does. But we should all be wary at this early stage in the general election of assuming any candidate has a particular problem with any specific demographic group.
The dust is still settling on the primaries. Plenty of voters are tuning out of politics for a while. As they tune back in they will begin to make assessments of how the two candidates measure up to each other. At which point, each candidate's problems will be brought into sharper relief.
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