Near the end of Sunday's Meet the Press, NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell boldly stated that racism has been a "real factor" in the Obama vote on the ground in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Apparently, because many voters are racist, they have a "willingness to believe totally erroneous things about Obama," like he didn't put his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance. (Ahem, Andrea, there's photographic evidence [0] of that "totally erroneous" charge.)

Let me just say something from being on the ground in Pennsylvania and in Ohio. I think racism is a real factor here.  I don't think it's being polled correctly because I don't think it can be polled correctly.  I think it is what you see in some of his failure to connect with a particular sector of the electorate.

And I'm not sure how you get your arms around it, but I think it is a real issue that there is a resistance to him on some level in the electorate, and you hear these things from voters when you talk to them.  "Oh, I heard that he's not really a Christian." "Oh, well, he didn't, you know, put his hand over his heart." All this willingness to believe totally erroneous things about Barack Obama, which begins to congeal, and I think it's a problem.

(Hat tip to A.J.)