EVERY SILVER LINING HAS A CLOUD

A lot of lefty bloggers are happy to read about one result in the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, and don't seem to be reading the rest of the results.

NBC/WSJ Poll: Bush a liability for McCain
A new poll says Bush -- not Wright or Bill Clinton -- is voters' main concern

Sen. Barack Obama's ties to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright could hurt his presidential hopes. So could his comment about "bitter" small-town America clinging to guns and religion. And Americans might question Sen. Hillary Clinton’s honesty and trustworthiness.

But according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, the bigger problem appears to be John McCain's ties to President Bush.

In the survey, 43 percent of registered voters say they have major concerns that McCain is too closely aligned with the current administration....

This compares to 36% who have concerns about Hillary Clinton's flip-flops, 34% who are concerned about Obama's "bitter" remarks, and 32% who are concerned about Obama's ties to Wright and Ayers. (A fuller explanation of this aspect of the poll is below.)

The best thing about this is that it comes from the mainstream media, which means that it might penetrate the thick skulls of others in the media -- at least for a few days, reporters and editors might say, "Duh, maybe we should talk about this Bush-McCain thing a little bit before reverting to our 24/7 coverage of the Democratic soap opera."

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But excitement about this needs to be tempered by a recognition of another set of results in the poll:

According to the survey, some voters also feel that McCain better reflects their values than the Democratic candidates.

Fifty-four percent of respondents in the survey said that they identify with McCain's background and his set of values, compared with 35 percent who didn't feel that connection.

...By contrast, Obama (45 vs. 46 percent) and Clinton (46 vs. 46 percent) received split scores on this question. Obama's score, in fact, is a significant drop from last month, when 50 percent of voters said they identified with his background and values, versus 39 percent who said they didn't....

Indeed, on this background/values question, Obama's score fell among small-town/rural voters (from 46-43 percent to 31-61 percent), suburban voters (56-32 percent to 49-40 percent) and those 65 and older (52-37 percent to 36-47 percent).

Ouch -- that hurts, especially that huge drop among older voters.

On that "shared background" question, McCain has dropped a mere 3 points in a month (57-32 in March, 54-35 now). Obama's dropped a lot, as noted above (50-39 to 45-46). Clinton's reversed a deficit, but she's still no better than neutral (43-52 in March, 46-46 now).

This is the real "have a beer" question -- this is voters talking about comfort and familiarity and their perceptions (delusions?) about standing on common ground with the candidates. This, I fear, is how America really votes. We had one Democrat, Obama, who had achieved the impossible: He was running even with a Republican on "normal."

And now neither Democrat is running even remotely close to McCain on "normal."

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Just to explain: The poll (results in this PDF) asks voters about three presumably troublesome facts about each candidate. McCain comes in at 1 (Bush), 5 (flip-flops), and 9 (age). Obama's at 3 ("bitter" remarks), 4 (association with Wright and Ayers), and 8 (flag pin). Clinton's at 2 (flip-flops), 6 (Tuzla honesty), and 7 (presence of Bill).