The fundamental error every single pundit is making

This diary is about ice cream, cake and the current election. Stick around to find out what the relevance is...

Every single pundit on TV and in the media is committing the identical error when they interpret the results of various primaries and caucuses. After each contest, exit polls are examined to determine who is "winning" and "losing" various demographics, with each camp using its own metrics.

Looking at the world through the patented Mark Penn microtargeted lens, Clinton partisans speciously argue that Obama is being "rejected" by certain types of voters -- older voters, Catholics, "lunchbucket" Democrats (isn't that phrase itself incredibly condescending?), etc. Meanwhile, the Obama camp tries to promote a colder, more comparative interpretation, noting that Obama has improved his standing among those demographics, and pointing out others where Clinton is "losing" voters -- for example, among youth and other independent-minded new voters.

And of course the mainstream media dutifully accepts and parrots this framing -- viewing the race through this lens of winning and losing demographics --  though its premise is entirely bogus. How so? I'll tell you after the jump...

Here's where all the pundits are completely off the mark:

Voters in various demographics aren't "rejecting" one candidate or another. And the candidates aren't "losing" or "failing to win" those various demographics. Rather, voters are choosing a candidate. They are expressing a preference. Remove one of the two choices, and put that candidate up against a Bush-embracing Republican, and those same voters will choose the person they supposedly "rejected" in the primary.

Let me try to express this in more workaday terms. If you offer me the choice of ice cream or cake, and I choose the cake, that does not mean I won't ever eat ice cream. It only means that between the two, I prefer cake.

See what I'm saying? The entire media narrative is based on the fundamental error of understanding that when Democratic primary voters pick a candidate, they are expressing a preference, not a complete rejection of the candidate not selected.

P.S.: Finally, when the primary's over, if you give me a choice between (a) ice cream or cake or (b) a rotting radish, I'm going to pick one of the desserts. (Guess who the radish is.)