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Chris Matthews, serious citizen, is concerned about Barack Obama’s bowling score

Discussing Sen. Barack Obama on the April 1 edition of MSNBC’s Hardball, host Chris Matthews asked Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO): "Let me ask youabout how he — how’s he connect with regular people? Does he? Or does he only appeal to people who come from the African-American community and from the people who have college or advanced degrees?" Earlier in the show, referring to Obama’s bowling performance at a March 29 campaign stop at Pleasant Valley Lanes in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Matthews teased the segment with McCaskill by asking, "[C]an Obama woo more regular voters — you know, the ones who actually do know how to bowl?" … "[T]his gets very ethnic, but the fact that he’s good at basketball doesn’t surprise anybody, but the fact that he’s that terrible at bowling does make you wonder."

Granted I almost certainly wasn’t alive the last time Chris Matthews hung out with regular people (whatever do you suppose he means by ethnic?), but as it happens there’s been a bit of a demographic shift since the people bowling were what you (or anyone but Chris Matthews) would call regular

Sixty percent of bowlers in the U.S. earn their living in professional fields where they have daily interaction with company managers, executives, marketers and others who drive corporate America. Six out of every 10 bowlers have some college education, and 25.3 percent have a college degree.

So let’s unpack the numbers, shall we?

Number of bowlers in the USA
(those who bowl at least once a year)

70 million
(37 million male, 33 million female)
Source: Simmons Research 2003
Number of youth bowlers
(those 17 and under who bowl at least once a year)		 24 million
Source: Simmons Research 2003

OK, so that’s about a quarter of bowlers with degrees, and a little more than a third who are too young to vote, which leaves you with about thirty percent of bowlers who are eligible to vote who don’t have college degrees (keeping in mind that comparatively few people have college degrees before they’re 21 or so).

How’s that stack up?

College Degree Nearly Doubles Annual Earnings, Census Bureau Reports New information from the U.S. Census Bureau reinforces the value of a college education: workers 18 and over with a bachelor’s degree earn an average of $51,206 a year, while those with a high school diploma earn $27,915. Workers with an advanced degree make an average of $74,602, and those without a high school diploma average $18,734.

According to new tables released on the Internet titled Educational Attainment in the United States: 2004, 85 percent of those age 25 or older reported they had completed at least high school and 28 percent had attained at least a bachelor’s degree — both record highs.

So by the time they’re 25, the average american has a slightly better than one in four chance at a bachelor’s degree. The average bowler, on the other hand, has a 25/70 chance, which is to say rather better than one in three. All those working-parent-magnet bowling alleys in the suburbs, I guess.

That Chris Matthews. Except for the knowing anything about the working class, he’s a real working class kind of guy.

Sheesh.

image via strudel