Bogus poll blames racism for Obama's performance

AP reports:

WASHINGTON - Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks — many calling them "lazy," "violent" or responsible for their own troubles.

The poll, conducted with Stanford University, suggests that the percentage of voters who may turn away from Obama because of his race could easily be larger than the final difference between the candidates in 2004 — about two and one-half percentage points.

This supposedly explains why Obama does not have a larger lead in the polls.

The doesn't show that at all. You can find the questions here. It tested racial views by asking for opinions on statements like this:

Generations of slavery have created conditions that make it difficult for blacks to work their way out of the lower class

But how does this have anything to do with Obama? He is not a descendent of slaves. He is not even related to slave descendents. He was largely reared by wealthy grandparents, and had a privileged upbringing.

I fail to see how this poll has any validity. There do not seem to be any of the necessary control questions to make it a scientific poll. Someone could easily think that many blacks are lazy and violent, without thinking that Obama is lazy or violent. Obama isn't even black! He is half white and half Kenyan. American blacks are descended from West Africans, not Kenyans.

For comparison, maybe they could have done a similar poll to measure how many points McCain is losing because of prejudice against the elderly. They did not. They also could have tested other reasons for disliking Obama, such as his inexperience, his lack of American roots, his radical leftist connections, his persistent race-baiting, his tax-and-spend voting record, his idiotic foreign policy positions, or his phoneyness. They did not.