Shocking, I know. But Dick Morris is lying through his teeth when he says President Obama has lost support among African-Americans.
According to a Washington Post/ABC News survey, his favorability rating among African-Americans has dropped off a cliff, plunging from 83 percent five months ago to a mere 58 percent today — a drop of 25 points, a bit more than a point per week!
Nothing is more crucial to the president’s reelection strategy than a super-strong showing among black voters. In the election of 2008, he was able to increase African-American participation from 11 percent of the total vote in 2004 to 14 percent. He carried 98 percent of them. This swing accounted for fully half of his gain over the showing of John Kerry. Now his ability to repeat that performance is in doubt.
The bolded part is an outright lie. I will repeat this and call Mr. Morris out: he is a liar and is lying on purpose to make President Obama look bad. Here is what the poll actually said:
New cracks have begun to show in President Obama’s support amongst African Americans, who have been his strongest supporters. Five months ago, 83 percent of African Americans held “strongly favorable” views of Obama, but in a new Washington Post-ABC news poll that number has dropped to 58 percent. That drop is similar to slipping support for Obama among all groups.
So yes, the number of African Americans holding strongly favorable opinions of the President right now are down. This is not the same as these opinions going to unfavorable, and Dick Morris knows it. He thinks you're too stupid to notice. And what's President Obama's actual, total favorability rating among African Americans, counting both strongly favorable and favorable positions?
Obama is strongest in the West, and has maintained substantial favorability among Hispanics (61 percent) as well as among African-Americans (86 percent).
That's right, 86 percent. A far cry from the 58 percent that Dick Morris claims, because Dick Morris is an outright liar. He takes one fact and claims it's another, and he does it on purpose to suggest that the President has lost 25 percent of African Americans in just a few months. He hasn't.
But Dick Morris knows the news orgs aren't going to fact check him, not even the Washington Post or ABC News. It was their poll after all, and the first thing they talk about is the drop among those strongly favorable numbers. Is that a problem? Yes. Does it mean Obama has "lost blacks" as Morris's column implies? No. He's lying. Period. End of story. 86 percent is not 58 percent.
But he'll go unchallenged by the people who should call him on it.
