By the way, the NBC-Wall Street Journal Poll showed Barack Obama well ahead of John McCain among Catholic voters. Mark Silk notes on the blog Spiritual Politics that it's because Obama is so far ahead with Hispanics (while McCain is apparently ahead , by a smaller margin, among non-Hispanic white Catholics). Silk notes that Obama's lead among Catholics is about the same as his overall lead in the poll.So all that chatter about Obama's weakness with the Catholic and Hispanic votes goes nowhere.Up next: the debate over whether there was systematic sexism in the news coverage of Hillary Clinton's campaign, as recounted in an interesting piece featured on the front page of today's New York Times. Most of the media people quoted in the article rightfully reject this idea, but Democratic chairman Howard Dean endorses it. Dean has evidently learned from the Republicans about using attacks on the news media to unite the party. His eyes are on the women's vote.The Times article reports on some over-the-top comments on cable TV, but I think the real media story on the Hillary Clinton campaign is that Clinton got off lightly in the news coverage. The reporters never really rummaged through what Clinton referred to as her "baggage," even though she essentially invited such inquiry by constantly saying she already had been "vetted." Clinton supporters should be thanking the people who covered the campaign.Like much else the pundits are saying about this election, this accusation of sexism goes nowhere.

Paul Moses is the author, most recently, of The Italian Squad: The True Story of the Immigrant Cops Who Fought the Rise of the Mafia (NYU Press, 2023). He is a contributing writer. Twitter: @PaulBMoses.

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