A new LA Times/Bloomberg national poll finds Barack Obama holding a 12-point lead over John McCain amongst registered voters. At face value, this seems to somewhat vindicate Newsweek’s notorious outlier poll showing Obama with a 15-point lead.

Here’s a life lesson: Never takes things at face value.

In fact, this latest poll surveyed registered voters — not likely voters. Even at that, the results were guaranteed to favor Obama from the beginning. At the end of the page you’ll find this:

In this national poll’s random sample of voters, 39% identified themselves as Democrats, 22% as Republicans, and 27% as independents.

39% of those they surveyed were Dems, while 22% were Republicans. That’s a 17-point spread. Considering those two factors, can anyone be shocked that the results favor Barack Obama?