illusionofjoy | 72% say mainstream media should not declare Obama the winner (Reply)

Without digging up the numbers for oneself, the mainstream media has led us to believe that Obama's nomination is somehow inevitable. However, when one examines the raw data, a different story takes shape. In pledged delegates, Obama has a 4% lead. In the popular vote, Clinton has a .05% lead. Neither candidate has this thing "sewn up." It is encouraging that the general public, for the moment, seems inclined to agree. From the PEW Research Center:

Fully 72% of the public - including comparable percentages of Democrats, Republicans and independents - say that journalists should not be anointing Obama as the Democratic nominee at this stage in the race. Just 20% say that journalists should be doing this.

Opinion among Democrats about what the press should do in this regard may well reflect their view that Hillary Clinton should stay in the race. Recent surveys by Gallup and ABC News/Washington Post find that most Democrats believe that Clinton should stay in the race. In the ABC News/Washington Post survey, released May 12, 64% of Democrats, including 42% of Obama supporters, said Clinton should remain in the race.

In other words, people aren't buying the mainstream media narrative that "it's over." Are we really surprised that the general public mistrusts the mainstream media, though? This is the same mainstream media who anointed Bush the winner of the 2000 election, aided and abetted leading us into a disasterous war in Iraq and encouraged the "Swiftboating" of John Kerry. Trust them? I trust them about as far as I can throw them.