Obama on Small-Town Pennsylvania...

[Alcon]

SurveyUSA has given us a bit of a surprise:

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In other words, Obama has mostly offended Republicans and people who already did not like him.  On the other hand, the "negative impact" numbers aren't great for him.  This may convince a few fit-sitting establishment security voters to shy back to Clinton, but mostly, this squib looks to be damp (whatever that means).  It looks increasingly unlikely like the remark itself hurt him more than a percentage point or two.

Also worth noting:  SurveyUSA pretty routinely has Clinton's best sample in their polls.

[Alcon]

A squib is a sort of firework. If it's damp, it doesn't go off.

Btw, was that a poll just of the Harrisburg area [question mark].

Oh, well, then that's accidentally apt.  Sweet.

No, it's not.  That's press release format.  SUSA is based in Harrisburg.

The key is going to be those fence sitters.  40% is high.

And pretty much irrelevant, since that includes Republicans.  It's the Democratic number we should be looking at.  I'm skeptical that 57% of independents agree with his statement, but I think the quote itself will be a fairly distant memory by November.  The "Obama is arrogant" meme is not going away.

[Alcon]

Did they ask whether people were personally offended? Because I imagine that would lower the number...

The question was "do you personally find the comments offensive?"  I guess that is slightly different from "were you personally offended?", though, but I'm not sure you can get a perfect question to get at what I think you're getting at.

Still, only 1/3 of Democrats in a Clinton-leaning state being "personally offended" (a number not all that much higher than the national poll of Democrats who think Obama should withdraw) suggests to me that this is mostly Clinton partisans reporting offense.

[Alcon]

Most people wouldn't really see a difference between "do you personally find the comments offensive" and "were you personally offended".

True -- I was going to add that but I can't remember the word for "the skill of differentiating between trivialities" this morning. 

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Of course. But then, they were the people he was "insulting", weren't they.

Bingo!

[Alcon]

Most people wouldn't really see a difference between "do you personally find the comments offensive" and "were you personally offended".

True -- I was going to add that but I can't remember the word for "the skill of differentiating between trivialities" this morning. 

You meant minutiae, not trivialities.  Minutiae are fine details.  Trivialities are little-known facts.

Yeah, that would be one instance of this word I can't remember.

[Alcon]

Most people wouldn't really see a difference between "do you personally find the comments offensive" and "were you personally offended".

True -- I was going to add that but I can't remember the word for "the skill of differentiating between trivialities" this morning. 

You meant minutiae, not trivialities.  Minutiae are fine details.  Trivialities are little-known facts.

Yeah, that would be one instance of this word I can't remember.

actually, that would be one facet of the word you can't remember, or perhaps one aspect of the word you can't remember.  An instance is one situation in a series of events, or one stage in a process.

No, your pointing out a trivial grammatical distinction would be one instance of the concept represented by the word.

("Bitch.")