Jaw. Dropped.

[novapsyche]

I watched Countdown last night. Olbermann had Chuck Todd on, discussing current polling numbers. (Mr. Todd has become kind of a celebrity on MSNBC, with his election math wizardry.) At the tail end of a question about whether Obama is being perceived as 'safe' or 'risky', Todd went into a strange ramble about how race might be involved in the responses, even though race was not mentioned in the question. Olbermann made his "mmm," a low-pitched gutteral.

On Hardball, the very next news show, he was discussing the same polling data with Chris Matthews, going into the same racialized analysis, when he said that people want to know "if he's one of us."

It's been almost seven hours since I heard that, and I still don't believe it.

The transcripts should be up later today; I will update as info permits.

Edit: For some reason, Hardball transcripts (which are not easy to find on MSNBC's website--not very well designed for searching) are not uploaded for two days after the broadcast. I should find some context and pertinent quote today (Friday).

Comments

[davehogg.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that he's saying that race is playing a role in whether people see Obama as safe or risky, which is pretty clearly true. I wish it weren't true, but that's what polling data has shown throughout the campaign.

I didn't see the complete Hardball clip, but I didn't get the impression that he meant "one of us" as his own opinion, but that he was saying that seemed to be what people worried about Obama were saying.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?