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CBS News conducted a poll on the opinions of women voters about Campaign 2008 and Kelly Wallace reported the results as an analysis of Hillary Rodham Clinton's standing. As Wallace pointed out, in the last three Presidential General Elections, the Democratic candidate attracted the support of the majority of women voters. Wallace's headline finding was that women "overwhelmingly" give Rodham Clinton high marks on leadership: 82% characterize her as a "strong leader" (Barack Obama 67%, Rudolph Giuliani 68%).
Wallace was misleading when she cited "believability" as "a possible vulnerability" for Rodham Clinton. Does she say what she thinks people want to hear or what she believes? With the poll's margin of error, her score (45%) for pandering was indistinguishable from Giuliani's (42%) yet Wallace implied that she had a worse reputation. On the other hand, Obama (27%) scored stellar marks for sincerity.
Finally, in the glass half full, glass half empty category, consider this formulation by Wallace. "The one area where men and women agree is on gender: more than half do not think it will matter at all in the campaign; but just about one third think it will make voters less likely to vote for Hillary Clinton." Another, more newsworthy, way to represent the same data would be to say this: "Men and women agree. Only one in six of either sex think Rodham Clinton's gender makes voters more likely to vote for her."
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