Griper Blade: Putting the 'Part' Back in 'Party'

The Democratic party's in disarray. Rent asunder. Cleft in twain. A house divided that cannot stand. Hillary's camp is moving to John McCain and Barack Obama -- once the Democratic wunderkind -- is left with only his cult of personality and black power types. It's doom, I tell you, do-o-o-m!

Or, at least, that's the impression you get from some of the punditry. One of the primary offenders in this media narrative has been cable giant CNN. After Clinton conceded, they beat a poll they'd taken into the ground. The subject was whether or not people wanted a Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton "dream ticket."

"Poll finds majority of Dems want Obama-Clinton ticket" was the headline they ran online and on the crawl beneath their broadcast for days on end, suggesting that the only way Barack could pull things out of a tailspin was to have Clinton come save him.

"Fifty-four percent of registered Democrats questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Friday think Obama should name his rival as his running mate," the story told us. "43 percent disagreed." Of course, with a margin for error of 4.5%, this is almost a statistical tie.

But still, half is a lot, right? Obama has to pick Hillary or his chances are shot all to hell, right?

Wrong. Despite the headline, the piece goes on; "Twenty-four percent of those polled said that even if Obama names someone else as his running mate, Clinton should try to override that decision at the Democratic convention in Denver in August. But 75 percent said that would not be a good idea."

What the poll really shows is that people aren't extremely imaginative. A pollster asks about a VP choice and people just say the first name that pops into their head. For half of the respondents, that first name was "Hillary." It doesn't represent any sort of passionate desire...

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