NBC's Andrea Mitchell is under fire from the conservative media blog Newsbusters for pointing out an incontrovertible fact — that Iowa is unrepresentative of the nation at large.
Mitchell previewed today's caucuses in a segment that aired on NBC Nightly News last night: "The rap on Iowa: it doesn't represent the rest of the country — too white, too evangelical, too rural."
Newsbusters' Noel Sheppard wrote this in response:
"Nice way of the NBC Nightly News informing viewers that much as the media did in 2008, the race card will be played whenever possible to assist Barack Obama in getting reelected.
Can you imagine any state in the union being referred to as "too black" or "too hispanic?
No, I can't either."
Of course, everything Mitchell said is 100 percent true. Iowa voters, and especially Iowa Republicans, are simply less diverse than the country at large.
In 2008, 60 percent of Republican caucus-goers identified themselves as "evangelical" or "born again" in a CNN exit poll.
The 2010 Census found that Iowa is 91.3 percent white, compared with 72.4 of the U.S. population as a whole.
Mitchell was making a factual statement about why Iowa success doesn't usually translate to national support. Calling it anything else is just ridiculous.