Prejudice, On Second Thought
Today’s report in The Washington Times that Obama has been slipping in the polls includes this:
“Obama moved from a fascinating phenomena to a guy who could become president and now he has got to answer the question of is he ready to be president,” said John Zogby, president of the polling firm Zogby International, whose latest poll this week gave Mr. McCain a one-percentage-point lead.
Mr. Zogby said racial prejudice is clearly behind some of the defections from Mr. Obama. . . .
Does moving from a “fascinating phenomena” [sic] to someone voters want to assess seriously indicate prejudice? Did the people responding to Zogby’s poll just now discover that Obama is black? How can a voter be racially prejudiced if he initially supports a candidate he knows to be black, and then after learning more about the candidate’s substantive positions “defects” to the other side? Wouldn’t all of the truly prejudiced voters be against the black candidate at the outset?
Or is Zogby just getting too old to think this through?
