Sometimes, maybe most times these days, the media misses the point.

That is the case with a silly statement by a well-known national television and radio reporter, Cokie Roberts, about Barack Obama taking a vacation in his hometown.

Roberts has impeccable credentials as a reporter on American politics, being the daughter of a Louisiana congressman with a bachelor's in political science from Wellesley College, with a grocery list of books and writings on being a woman in a political world and politics in general.

The news stories have been on the offended reaction from Hawaii, primarily Sen. Daniel Akaka, over Roberts' opinionating that Obama taking a week off to visit his grandmother at home is a bad idea.

What she said (although not with the context of what others on the program were saying):

"As we've talked about before, in this year that should be such a Democratic year given all the other indices, he is tied in the polls and stage-sided in the polls and going off to a vacation in Hawaii does not make any sense whatsoever.

"I know his grandmother lives in Hawaii and I know Hawaii is a state, but it has the look of him going off to some sort of foreign, exotic place. He should be in Myrtle Beach, and, you know, if he's going to take a vacation at this time.

"And I just think that you know this is not the time to do that."

The discussion on an ABC program featuring media talking heads was on why Obama isn't simply running away from John McCain in a round of opinion polls showing the Democratic and Republican candidates for president running close.

The discussion reflects more a media infatuation with polls than the reality of the situation facing the candidates today. Even the most credible polls will note that they are at best "snapshots" of public opinion at the time they are taken - which for a poll on candidates for election is not when the election is held.

The only poll that counts is the one that voters participate in on Election Day.

Most reporters talking about poll results don't seem to understand that fact, Roberts now being among them. She may be correct that more voters will be influenced by what a candidate like Obama does in the months and weeks before the election on Nov. 4. But she seems to think the respondents in opinion polls are the ones to count.

It's at best difficult to gauge how the voters respond to his activities this week - spending time with his family, old school friends, his grandmother, visiting the grave of his grandfather at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific - with stories about that visit noting his grandfather served in World War II.

If Obama felt a need to play to the media, he easily could have lined up television cameras to follow him as he placed flowers at his grandfather's grave site, against the backdrop of the lines of graves and monuments at Punchbowl.

It probably offends celebrity news reporters that a news figure doesn't see a need to play to their stereotypes and presumptions. What has been reported about Obama's vacation in Hawaii suggests that he cares about connections to family and friends. Whether he intended to have it play that way, there are people in communities around the country who appreciate connections to family, and might even think that's an important character trait.

It's almost amusing that an East Coast media ego fails to sense a disconnect when a presidential candidate goes off on vacation to a Cape Cod gated estate as if for most Americans that isn't a foreign and exotic place - a place they can only sightsee, never expect to live.

What reporters like Roberts appear to be missing, and probably what the McCain campaign most fears, is the enthusiasm activating a segment of the citizen population inspired by a candidate, who like they, was born about the time Roberts was graduating from Wellesley. Many were not inclined to be involved in their country's leadership choices before, but are now.

The campaign organization around Obama is appealing to American youth, evolving out of the pool of under-30s who are disturbed at the decisions made by the over-50s and see a face with which they can identify and possibly even trust.

Their level of participation can't be easily gauged, which may be the reason reporters experienced in political dogma rely on well-worn ideology to assess what succeeds in the timing and planning of an election campaign - while the audience relies on blogging and word-of-mouth texting.

It may all mirror what is happening to media in the United States, as newspapers and even television news broadcasters slide below the consciousness of the diverse and diversifying society. It could be that the reporters - and the editors - are out of touch.

* Edwin Tanji can be reached at citydesk@mauinews.com. "Haku Mo'olelo," referring to a story writer, appears every Friday.