A day after excoriating the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and trying once again to finally put a difficult hurdle behind his campaign, Barack Obama has already received three big endorsements today from prominent super delegates, giving him four in the last twenty-four hours alone.

Indiana Rep. Baron Hill, whose district in the southeast part of the state is heavily blue collar and should be prime territory for Hillary Clinton, will endorse Obama tonight, the campaign confirmed. In a long statement, Hill cited Obama's denunciation of Wright's comments, which Hill said showed "a strength of character and commitment to our nation that transcends the personal."

Hill also pointed to an earlier endorsement of Obama from former Rep. Lee Hamilton, whom Hill replaced in the House. The former vice chairman of the September 11 Commission endorsed Obama in early April.

Obama will also be endorsed by Iowa Rep. Bruce Braley, one of three Democratic members of Congress from the Hawkeye State and one who had endorsed John Edwards before his state's caucuses. Braley will describe his decision to support Obama on a conference call this afternoon, after what he described as overwhelming support for Obama at his Congressional District caucus over the weekend.

In a move that shows their confidence, the Obama campaign pointed out that Braley and Hill's endorsements bring them to 246 total super delegates -- the latest RCP Super Delegate Count has the number at 241 -- and within 286 delegates of securing the party's nomination. There are 291 uncommitted super delegates remaining.

Just a few hours later, California Democratic Rep. Lois Capps announced she too would back Obama, cutting the number of delegates needed to clinch the nomination to 285.

While Hillary Clinton has picked up several super delegates in recent days -- including Pennsylvania AFL-CIO chief Bill George, who endorsed today -- Obama's roll-out the day after his condemnation of Jeremiah Wright feels like the turning point the campaign was looking for. If Obama pulls out at least one win on Tuesday, it may bring down a hail of super delegate endorsements that forces Clinton from the race. Today might be just the tip of the iceberg.

Posted by Reid Wilson at 01:00 PM | Email Author | Permalink

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania -- For two candidates who profess to be most concerned with bringing their country and their party together, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton spent more time at last night's debate raising issues that divide the Democratic electorate than those that unite them. Last night's encounter, which marks nearly two dozen times the two have shared a stage, focused more on political questions than policy discussions, an indication, perhaps, that the intended audience was not Pennsylvania voters but rather the several hundred super delegates who have yet to publicly endorse a candidate.

The political wrangling that has consumed the political press corps in recent weeks found its way on stage for the entire first half of the debate. Obama, who critics charge has been treated with kid gloves by the mainstream media, underwent the harshest questioning he has faced so far during the primaries. Likely to the delight of Hillary Clinton's battered campaign, the New York Senator's rival spent most of that time on the defensive, both from Clinton and from debate moderators. But if Clinton was looking for a game-changing performance, she failed to contribute on her end, leaving both candidates without clear bragging rights.

Buffeted by days of controversy surrounding his suggestion that some in small-town Pennsylvania were bitter at their economic status, Obama brought up the gaffe in his opening statement. Citing Pennsylvanians' "core decency and generosity," Obama said there is nonetheless a sense of frustration, and that his candidacy hopes to "transform that frustration into something more hopeful." "It's not the first time that I've made, you know, a statement that is mangled up," Obama said.

The uproar over "bitter"-gate was far from the only controversy Obama faced all night. More than a month after a major speech in the same Constitution Center in which last night's debate was held, Obama still had to answer questions about his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose controversial comments are still coming up. Later, Obama needed several minutes to answer a question about why he doesn't wear a flag pin. Though he claimed the flap was a "manufactured issue," Obama did not give the short answer he could have.

Clinton too had a rough night, beginning when she answered for her error in judgment over misstatements about her trip to Bosnia as First Lady. What she said on the campaign trail "didn't jive with what I've written about and knew to be the truth," she admitted. "I'm embarrassed about it."

Both candidates, asked whether their opponent could win a general election against John McCain, agreed, though for Clinton, whose assertion to super delegates that she is the most electable is more central to her campaign, the answer seemed almost overeager. "Yes, yes, yes," she said. "I think I can do a better job. Obviously. That's why I'm here," she backpedaled. "I, too, think that I'm the better candidate," Obama said a minute later.

ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson and fellow moderator George Stephanopoulos spent time on pointed questions about previous campaign statements, tactics and strategy, both for the primary and the general election, questions that would seem to concern party insiders, the media and valuable super delegates more than the electorate. Indeed, both candidates said they had fun during the preceding fifteen months of campaigning, but Gibson acknowledged that the race has gone far past the point at which pledged delegates can provide one candidate or the other a clear majority. "This is sort of round fifteen in a scheduled ten-rounder," Gibson joked as he opened the debate.

Not until 8:53 p.m., about 45 minutes after the debate started, did Gibson elicit the first policy-based response from the candidates, on Iraq. Both candidates said they would hold true to their pledges to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq in short order, offering no new policies but reiterating their commitment to ending the war. Asked about defending Israel from a possible nuclear strike from Iran, Obama agreed to do so while Clinton went farther, proposing a "security umbrella" that would protect other Middle East allies from an Iranian strike in exchange for the promise that they not pursue their own nuclear weapons.

It took until after 9:00 p.m. for the first question on domestic policy to arise, though when it did, the candidates engaged in their first real policy back-and-forth in months. Both pledged to cut taxes on middle class families, and generally agreed on capital gains taxes. But the two parted ways on lifting the $97,000 cap on payroll taxes, which Clinton said would hurt the middle class but which Obama said was necessary to fairly taxing much wealthier Americans.

Obama saved his best moment for last, asserting that he made a bet that Americans wanted a change in politics, and that he could be the messenger of that change. "During the course of these last fifteen months, my bet's paid off," Obama said. Clinton's best moment was a long, detailed answer on how to bring gas prices down, which she said she would do partly by investigating the possibility of price gouging and consideration of a possible windfall profit tax on oil companies.

Despite the occasional flare-up, though, both candidates stayed respectful in tone, if not in purpose. That carried some negatives for both candidates. In walking the tightrope designed to avoid losing votes by angering undecided supporters, Obama was forced into a defensive posture, a point from which he struggled to recover all night. Clinton, who was both more humorous and more detailed in her policy discussions, has yet to find the balance between hitting Obama hard on his vulnerabilities and not appearing shrill, could not deliver her own much needed knockout blow.

Trailing by half a dozen points in Pennsylvania, Obama likely did nothing to change his fortunes here. But Clinton, who faces harsh terrain after leaving Pennsylvania, did nothing to seriously blunt Obama's chances among voters in North Carolina, Indiana and following states. Both candidates, it seems, are committed to letting actual voters, be they super delegates or the regular primary electorate, decide the Democratic nomination fight.

Posted by Reid Wilson at 12:00 AM | Email Author | Permalink

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania -- When Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton meet on stage tonight for their first and only debate in Pennsylvania since early November, and their last before Keystone State voters head to the polls on Tuesday, both candidates will try and gain crucial and much-needed momentum. Since their last meeting, before the March 4 primaries in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont, the Democratic race has devolved into a chaos of mudslinging, and neither candidate has been able to seize a permanent and crushing upper hand. At the moment, the Democratic race is a contest of no-mentum.

For Clinton, that lack of positive movement has been excruciating, approaching the death of her candidacy by a thousand cuts. Since the March 4 primaries, Clinton, whose rationale for staying in the race hinges on convincing super delegates to give her the nomination at the convention in Denver, has picked up just nine party leaders with automatic votes at a convention. Obama has picked up at least twenty-two in the same period, including such big names as New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar and North Carolina Reps. Mel Watt and David Price, who endorsed the Illinois Senator today.

Too, while Clinton's strategy of convincing those super delegates that Obama would lose to Republican nominee John McCain in the Fall is gaining some traction, the Clinton campaign is the wrong messenger, and because of her attacks on Obama's record and rhetoric, the New York Senator has seen her unfavorable ratings jump through the roof. An ABC News/Washington Post poll out today shows Clinton's favorable rating at just 44%, down fourteen points since January; her unfavorable marks are up a corresponding fourteen points, to 54%. Both numbers are significantly worse than those of McCain or Obama.

Obama has not had an easy time closing the deal, either. To be sure, Obama leads the race for pledged delegates to the Democratic convention by a wide and virtually insurmountable margin. After a month and a half of stories involving Obama's relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, one tinged with racial overtones with which the candidate would rather not deal, and almost a week of non-stop talk of his controversial comments at a San Francisco fundraiser, some Democrats have voiced concern that Clinton might be right, and that the candidate who seemed above reproach is in fact as flawed as any other politician.

The Obama team has made its mistakes as well. An advertisement that was running on Pennsylvania stations as late as yesterday claimed that Obama is the only candidate who doesn't take money from oil companies, which allowed the Clinton campaign to point out, correctly, that no candidate can take money from corporations -- a political point scored, albeit a minor one, but it gave Clinton the opportunity to once again play the victim, a role to which she is uniquely suited and experienced. Obama's campaign has also failed to show it can slam the door on harmful stories, whether they involve Wright or the comments in which Obama seemed to imply that small-town bitterness leads to citizens lower on the economic totem pole clinging to their guns, their god and their prejudices.

Both fiascoes were spread around as quickly and as widely as possible by the Clinton campaign, to be sure, and Obama answered both with reasonable explanations. On Wright's comments, a well-received speech in Philadelphia seemed to fully explain his thoughts on the Reverend's comments that many found offensive; and though he has largely stuck to the general point of his remarks in San Francisco, which Clinton and McCain labeled as elitist comments, Obama has apologized for his word choice and sought to more fully explain what he meant. But here we are, weeks (in one case) and days (in the other) later, still talking about Jeremiah Wright and bitter Pennsylvanians.

Clinton, who should have been poised to capitalize on the stumbles of a rookie candidate, had troubles of her own, and like Obama's, her campaign has been unable to get out from under the weight of a foolish comment. Clinton's claim that she landed in a war zone in Bosnia under sniper fire -- a tale quickly exposed as false, complete with footage of a young girl greeting her at the airport -- continues to crop up, no thanks to her husband, who brought the topic up unexpectedly at a series of rallies in Indiana last week.

That scene, news footage of the girl meeting Clinton at the airport, brings to mind a surprisingly apropos metaphor: In "Wag the Dog," a fake war in Albania is launched to divert attention from a presidential sex scandal. One scene depicts the duplicitous president meeting an Albanian grandmother and her granddaughter, both refugees, at an airport. The parallel is telling of Clinton's larger problem: She is seen as just as conniving as many felt her husband was, and in fact she takes the blame that some thought wouldn't stick to him, but she gets none of the breaks he ever did. Americans who trusted Bill Clinton do not now trust his wife. The same Washington Post poll shows just 39% say they think Hillary Clinton is honest and trustworthy, while 58% disagree.

Again, though, Obama has been unable to seal the deal. Despite a strong comeback in Pennsylvania -- he cut Clinton's lead in the RCP Pennsylvania Average from nearly 17 points in mid-March to just six points last week -- his last-minute charge has stalled as he reached what looks like his ceiling in the Democratic primary. Just one polling firm used in RCP Averages has shown Obama reaching 45%. Clinton, meanwhile, has peaked at 56% in several polls going back several weeks. Obama has been unable to break through his apex despite outspending Clinton in television advertising by a factor of at least four.

Tonight, Democratic voters in Pennsylvania will see two candidates who have stalled and are looking for something to get them started again. Keystoners will have the opportunity to move the contest to other states and give Clinton a boost with a big win, or to end the primary by delivering a majority of their votes to Obama. But if voters are faced with two choices who can't seem to avoid a serious gaffe on what seems like a weekly basis, they may do neither. If Clinton wins a narrow victory, the purgatory of no-mentum will slouch unbroken toward May 6 contests in North Carolina and Indiana.

Posted by Reid Wilson at 03:15 PM | Email Author | Permalink

In a hastily organized conference call with reporters, supporters of Barack Obama today defended the senator's controversial remarks in which he characterized residents of small towns as "bitter" at economic hardships they faced by shifting focus to the underlying principle they say Obama was addressing. "I don't think I would agree, or I would use the same words," said Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray. "I would use the word that people are angry. ... It's a very thin surface that you have to scratch beneath to find this anger."

"It's not surprising [that people] get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations," Obama said at the fundraiser. "So people end up, you know, voting on issues like guns, and are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. And they take refuge in their faith and their community and their families and things they can count on. But they don't believe they can count on Washington." On Saturday, Axelrod attempted a clarification. "When things are going badly, people hold to the things that are important to them, and sustain them, and certainly faith is one -- he's a person of deep faith. Traditions are another," Axelrod said.

Top strategist David Axelrod said Obama had chosen his words poorly, but the sentiment was important to understand. "He made it very clear that he regrets the remarks," Axelrod said. "He was sorry for the offense that anybody took from them, and I think he understands why they might." But several small-town mayors said no apology was necessary. "It's not patronizing. It's not condescending. It's not elitism," said Braddock Mayor John Fetterman.

Since the comments, made at a San Francisco fundraiser last weekend, Obama has been hit hard by both his remaining rivals. "Senator Obama's remarks are elitist and out of touch," Clinton said at a rally in Indiana, while her new top strategists, pollster Geoff Garin, told TPM's Greg Sargent the comments "will be damaging." Indiana Senator Evan Bayh told reporters that the comments should be taken into account by super delegates who have yet to make up their mind about whom to support, while former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, a former small-town mayor himself, called the comments "condescending and disappointing."

In his own statement, McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds characterized Obama's reaction to the firestorm as arrogant. "Only an elitist who attributes religious faith and gun ownership to bitterness would think that tax cuts for the rich include families who make $75,000 per year. Only an elitist would say that people vote their values only out of frustration," Bounds said. "Barack Obama thinks he knows your hopes and fears better than you do. You can't be more out of touch than that."

Staffers at the Republican National Committee pushed the remarks around to reporters and bloggers, while the National Republican Congressional Committee issued press releases calling on twenty-five targeted Democratic members of Congress to repudiate Obama's remarks. "Americans don't want liberal politicians like Barack Obama who believe Washington is a substitute for faith, personal responsibility and belief that the Constitution guarantees our freedoms," NRCC communications director Karen Hanretty said in the statements.

Axelrod and others on the campaign's afternoon conference call lashed out at rivals' attacks, saying that Clinton's especially strain credibility. On the economy, trade and other issues of import to rural voters, Obama's "position has been wholly consistent over the years and that's not something Senator Clinton can claim." While Obama spoke of some rural voters' anger, Axelrod said, "Both Senator McCain and Senator Clinton seem to deny that, and it makes you wonder whether they're reading from the Washington playbook," he said.

"There is a real anger in many of our communities in this country." "We need hope," Fetterman said, not someone who is "fabricating sniper stories." Clinton's and McCain's reaction "showed someone out of touch with what's going on in our communities," Gray said. "That was more patronizing than the statements by Senator Obama."

Posted by Reid Wilson at 04:00 PM | Email Author | Permalink

Hillary Clinton's last shot to convince super delegates that she is the right candidate to take on John McCain in November hinges on her argument that she is more electable than rival Barack Obama. And Clinton polls better against McCain in the latest RCP Averages in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida. But a new survey from Wisconsin Public Radio and St. Norbert College suggests that in at least one battleground state key to any Democrat's victory, Obama has the electoral advantage.

The poll, conducted 3/25-4/5, surveyed 400 Wisconsin adults for a margin of error of about +/- 4.9%. Clinton, Obama and McCain were all tested.

General Election Matchups
Obama 46
McCain 42

McCain 46
Clinton 42

Any poll showing Clinton performing more poorly against McCain than Obama could seriously undermine Clinton's electability argument. It is no wonder, then, that the Obama campaign blasted the poll out to reporters as quickly as they could. If Clinton underperforms in Pennsylvania, super delegates not convinced that she's the most electable candidate could begin flocking to Obama in droves.

Posted by Reid Wilson at 12:00 PM | Email Author | Permalink

Pressure is mounting on super delegates from upcoming primary states to make their endorsements now, and two members of Congress, thus far uncommitted, say their endorsements could come soon. Still, they worry the Democratic nominating contest has already gone on too long, and that it could permanently harm the party.

Speaking on Politics Nation Radio on Saturday, North Carolina Rep. David Price and Pennsylvania Rep. Jason Altmire maintained they have not made their decisions final, but that a choice could come shortly. "I'm thinking about [an endorsement]. There's certainly a good argument for going ahead in this kind of situation and doing what seems best in terms of trying to influence the outcome here," Price said. But, he said, "I may have an announcement fairly soon."

Price's district comprises the Tar Heel State's so-called Research Triangle, which encompasses several major universities and is about one-fifth African American. "Obama has a good lead here, but it's a hard-fought situation," Price said of the whole state and of his own district. Despite reports on Sunday and Monday that North Carolina Democratic members of Congress were moving toward endorsing Obama en masse, Price said he didn't think the group would make a joint announcement. "We have not moved as a delegation, and probably won't in any one direction," he said.

Altmire, whose western Pennsylvania district includes several Pittsburgh suburbs, is more worried about the effect the contest will have on the party. "Whenever I attend one of these rallies for one of the candidates and it shows up in the paper, we get flooded with calls in our office with people who have supported me saying, 'If he votes for that candidate or endorses that candidate I'm never going to support him again,'" Altmire said on Politics Nation. "And that's my biggest fear, is that this is starting to become so tense between the two campaigns and there's such animosity that it's driving a wedge between people who should be all focused on the same goal, which is winning back the White House."

After attending one rally last week, at which Senator Bob Casey endorsed Obama, Altmire still hasn't made up his mind. "I'm taking advantage of the opportunity that both candidates and their surrogates are spending a lot of time in western Pennsylvania and in my district," he said. Still, his largely blue collar suburbs are likely to go heavily for one candidate. "If the election were held today, in my district and in my region, ... Senator Clinton would win," he said. "But I think Senator Obama is certainly working hard and going to do everything he can to at least minimize the margins if not win outright."

The Obama campaign has "I think a more global strategy with regard to the state than just focusing on regions," Altmire concluded. Obama "does have the chance to [win], although I would say again that Senator Clinton is the favorite." Regardless of the outcome, Altmire said he will attend the Democratic National Convention in Denver in late August.

While Altmire's Pennsylvania has gone Democratic in recent decades, Price's North Carolina remains more solidly Republican. Altmire said his district is likely to go heavily for John McCain, so that electability is less of an issue for him, but it's something that is at least on Price's mind. "It's certainly a consideration that unpledged delegates, including myself, need to take into account," Price said.

Listen to Price's and Altmire's comments in this space tomorrow, when we post the full two-hour audio of XM Radio's Politics Nation.

Posted by Reid Wilson at 11:00 AM | Email Author | Permalink

In an opinion piece out this morning in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, a columnist writes of his impressionas after meeting with Hillary Clinton in the Western Pennsylvania newsroom. Clinton had "courage and confidence," as well as "impressive command" of top issues. "I have a very different impression of Hillary Clinton today than before last Tuesday's meeting -- and it's a very favorable one indeed," the author wrote.

Without knowing the writer's name, the piece would be another in a series of good interviews Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain have given to editorial boards from Iowa to New Hampshire, back to Nevada and across the country. But knowing that the author, Richard Mellon Scaife, was one of the biggest Clinton-hating attack dogs of the 1990's shows another example of strange political bedfellows.

Scaife, the owner of the paper and billionaire heir to Andrew Mellon's banking fortune, gave more than a million dollars to the conservative American Prospect magazine for what they called the "Arkansas project" during Bill Clinton's presidency. The money went to investigate the then-president's personal life in Arkansas, an effort that may have led Hillary Clinton to refer to the newspaper magnate when she called out the "vast right-wing conspiracy."

Because of Scaife's role in promoting the Clinton-era scandals, the op-ed shocked some Clinton fans. "I never thought I would utter these words, but I would like to shake his hands for keeping his mind open despite the predisposed prejudice toward her," former Clinton lawyer Lanny Davis told the New York Times.

Scaife is one of several conservatives whose large bank accounts could have made them big anti-Clinton factors. But while several leading candidates had independent expenditures made on their behalf, Clinton was the only candidate with major outside money being spent against her as well. As with Rupert Murdoch, the conservative owner of News Corp., Scaife was not among those spending money against Clinton.

While Scaife said he will wait to hear from Barack Obama to make an endorsement, he has yet to go as far as the owner of Fox News. Murdoch held a fundraiser for Clinton last year.

Posted by Reid Wilson at 10:00 AM | Email Author | Permalink

A week after a ground-breaking speech that many viewed favorably, while others said he did not go far enough, new polls paint a decidedly mixed picture on Barack Obama's approach to race in America and, more specifically, his relationship with controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright. For his purposes, the polls show Obama's speech was effective in the short run, though like John McCain, he faces an ongoing conversation before voters choose to cast ballots for or against him in November that could, ironically, turn what was supposed to be an election fought over moderates into a typical contest for the base.

A month ago, Barack Obama was the golden candidate, untouched and untouchable by scandal, attack or implication from rival campaigns that he was too inexperienced to become president. In the past month, though, issues surrounding his relationship with developer Tony Rezko, his waffling on NAFTA and his ability to answer a crisis phone call at 3 a.m. began to rub the veneer off his once-perfect image. But lurking beneath that veneer was a darker question, an issue Obama would have to deal with before facing voters in November. It's a question that has never been tested at the ballot box: Is America ready for an African American president?

This country remains polarized by race. Obama's speech, and reaction afterward, acknowledged both African American and white angst about race relations here, and, given recent exit polling in states where the racial divide has become increasingly pronounced, the campaign has had to deal with the notion that a latent racism remains in at least some voters' minds. Obama's twenty-year relationship with Wright, now retired, was the outlet through which those dormant feelings were released.

As with Mitt Romney and religion, or John McCain and his relationship with conservatives, it became clear that Obama would have to, in some way, address his relationship with Wright not only in the context of the Reverend's comments, but under the larger umbrella of race relations as a whole.

With the release of several of Wright's sermons, Obama's numbers began to take a serious tumble. Daily Gallup tracking poll numbers showed Obama leading by as many as six points, a 50%-44% margin, on March 13. His lead was cut to three the next two days, and by March 16, rival Hillary Clinton had stolen a two-point lead. As the Wright controversy mounted, Clinton built herself a seven-point head start by March 18, leading 49%-42%, and seemingly giving credence to the notion that Obama, unvetted and untested on the national stage, was a risk Democrats could hardly take.

But since March 18, the day of Obama's speech in Philadelphia, his numbers in the daily tracking polls have only improved. Now, for the survey conducted from March 22 to 25, beginning the night after the address, Obama has retaken the lead, up 47%-46%. In the minds of Democratic voters, it seems, Obama has answered enough questions and reestablished himself enough to retake his position atop the Democratic race - not only in terms of pledged delegates, electoral victories and popular votes, but in terms of the confidence of the overall electorate. As Clinton argues that super delegates should make up their minds based on the best decision for the party as a whole, the answer to that question, thanks to the speech, once again looks like it becomes Obama.

A CBS News poll focused solely on Obama's address concurs, to a large extent. Voters said he addressed race relations in a positive manner by a three-to-one margin, while almost the same ratio said they agreed with his views on the subject. Importantly, independent voters agreed by a 65%-25% margin.

The poll, which surveyed voters interviewed last week about the Wright controversy, showed that, thanks to the controversy, the same number would be more likely to vote for him as would be less likely, at 14% each. Only 24% of independent voters - 11% more likely, 13% less likely - said the controversy would have an impact on their decision.

But the poll showed Rev. Wright's comments and Obama's subsequent speech opens a rabbit hole in which Obama could find danger. While two-thirds of those polled in the initial survey said they believed Obama would unite the country, that number dropped 15 points to 52% in the subsequent questioning. Obama's favorable rating also took a big hit, as 43% say they view him favorably while 30% view him unfavorably. Those unfavorable numbers are up seven points since the last CBS News poll, conducted in the final week in February.

Every poll taken about the speech shows it has gotten significant attention around the country. A survey from Georgia-based InsiderAdvantage shows 82% of respondents were aware of Wright's comments and 83% were aware of Obama's speech.

Unlike the CBS poll, though, the InsiderAdvantage survey showed more voters less likely to cast ballots for Obama after becoming aware of the controversy. Among those who had heard something about the speech and Wright's comments, 52% said they were less likely to vote for Obama, while just 19% said they were more likely to do so. "The general effect on voters was to make them, for that moment, less likely to vote for [Obama]," InsiderAdvantage's Matt Towery said.

But Towery cautioned that the numbers don't mean Obama is dead in the water, thanks largely to the amount of media surrounding the entire contest. "What used to take a month to get out of a news cycle now takes a matter of days," he said. "The fact that on a Wednesday or Thursday the public has a feeling they're less likely to vote for someone doesn't mean they'll think that over the weekend." The message Towery took from his poll, he said, is that the Wright controversy "is blowing over."

Issues of race, should Obama become the Democratic nominee, are not going to go away as the campaign progresses. To win the presidency, Obama has to reach out not only to the independents he seems to attract, but he must bring with him the traditional Democratic base as well. To attract some made nervous by Wright's comments, Obama will have to own the conversation about race.

As McCain prepares to face Obama in November, Americans will be faced with two candidates who appeal strongly to moderates and independents. Both, though, will head into the showdown with repair work to be done in their own parties, making the conversation they have with conservative voters, for McCain, and white, blue-collar voters, for Obama, as important as any conversation geared toward each other and the middle. Obama's speech, like McCain's at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, was the start of that conversation. Neither one will end soon.

Posted by Reid Wilson at 10:00 AM | Email Author | Permalink

In what has become one of the most hallowed March traditions of office places everywhere, Obama's campaign staff momentarily paused their productivity, filled out their brackets, and threw in $10 towards their office NCAA pool.

Their picks? Spokespersons Bill Burton and Dan Pfeiffer both have Georgetown in the championship, but UCLA winning. A Georgetown alum, Pfeiffer was tempted to pick his alma mater, but lost the campaign pool last year after going with the Hoyas. Pfeiffer says he learned his lesson, noting: "The audacity of my hopefulness only extends so far."

As for the other staffers, speechwriter Jon Favreau and Ben Finkenbinder have Kansas winning the tournament, while strategist David Axelrod and policy director Heather Higginbottom picked UNC. Obama's body man Reggie Love, who played on Duke University's 2001 national championship team, has Duke, Louisville, Kansas, and Marquette in his final four.

But the campaign may be betting on Obama, who won the Senators NCAA Pool last year, to be cutting down the nets. During his short flight from Fayetteville to Charlotte yesterday, Obama filled out his bracket, settling on UNC.

The Clinton campaign confirmed they have organized an office pool for the tourney, although the staff declined to disclose their picks

-- Nora McAlvanah

Posted by Reid Wilson at 05:00 PM | Email Author | Permalink

Hillary Clinton is in Indiana for a number of events today, while Barack Obama is in West Virginia. With just over a month to go before Pennsylvania voters head to the polls, the Keystone State is already so passe. Recent polls show Clinton leading by a wide margin -- up 16.6 points in the latest RCP Pennsylvania Average -- and Obama has largely moved on to focus on other states.

That's nothing unusual this year. Each time one candidate takes a lead in one state, the other will play down that state's importance and move to the next stop on the calendar. Democrats privately gripe that the extended contest will hurt them in November, and in truth, that's both candidates' fault. Neither has decided to play strongly on the other candidate's turf.

At some point, a battle royale will have to take place. Clinton has already hinted that she may take a pass on North Carolina, which holds its nominating contest on May 6 (and where Obama leads the latest RCP North Carolina Average by 5.4 points), and Oregon, which votes May 20, should be good Obama territory as well. If Clinton plays in either and wins, those victories would go a long way toward her securing the nomination.

Obama, on the other hand, has the opportunity to score on Clinton turf in West Virginia, which votes May 13, or Kentucky, the following Tuesday, May 20. Wins in either of those states could potentially knock Clinton out of the contest.

Indiana remains a toss-up, and each candidate has advantages. Clinton will likely do well in the state's eastern and southern regions, where blue collar whites make up a heavy portion of the electorate. Obama will perform well in Indianapolis, where African Americans are dominant in Democratic circles, as well as the western region of the state, which is in his home media market. So far, Obama has not lost a state that touches Illinois.

It would seem obvious that Indiana is the one remaining battle ground. If Clinton wins, she will wholly own the momentum, and super delegates may begin to break more quickly for her. If Obama takes the prize, he could build a delegate lead large enough to renew calls for Clinton to leave the race.

But we heard the same thing about Pennsylvania. In fact, a Clinton adviser tells CBS's Fernando Suarez, no one has a plan to end the race. "The campaign will go on until all the states and Puerto Rico have voted," the adviser said. Puerto Rico's primary, on June 1, happens two days before the final two scheduled contests, in Montana and South Dakota.

Posted by Reid Wilson at 12:00 PM | Email Author | Permalink

As the window for a potential revote in Michigan becomes ever smaller, a team of rich Democratic donors are promising to front the money for a new primary in a last-ditch effort to save the contest, USA Today reports. And to no one's surprise, those donors largely back one candidate over the other, demonstrating again just how crucial a revote is to Hillary Clinton's chances of winning the nomination.

New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, both major Clinton supporters, spearheaded the initiative to put together donors willing to fork over the $12 million for a new contest, and Corzine is one of the ten people listed as willing to guarantee the money will be there. The former Goldman Sachs chief spent $60 million of his own money to get elected to the governorship and is worth somewhere north of $250 million.

Corzine is joined by several other prominent Clinton backers, including Haim Saban, Bernard Schwartz, Roger Altman and John Catsimatidis. While all ten of the donors have given to Clinton's campaigns for Senate or the White House, two are less involved in the campaign, as lawyers John Eddie Williams and Peter Angelos have stayed out. Angelos' name might sound familiar; the prominent trial attorney now owns the Baltimore Orioles baseball team.

The Obama campaign has been naturally suspicious of any revote, and now that Clinton donors are offering the cash to run it, they've become even louder in their protests. Spokesman Bill Burton told USA Today the promise, contained in an open letter to Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, is "even more evidence that Clinton is willing to do absolutely anything to get elected."

Though they were trying to help, the ten donors may have unintentionally doomed Michigan's hopes of holding a revote at all, allowing the Obama camp to slam the window shut once and for all.

Posted by Reid Wilson at 11:00 AM | Email Author | Permalink

As Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton head toward Pennsylvania, the Keystone State has already failed to become what so many others have tried to be: Ground zero. Conventional wisdom held that, had Clinton won Iowa, the Democratic race would have come to a screeching halt. If Obama had won New Hampshire, it was all over. Barring that, Super Tuesday was supposed to decide the nominee.

None of those scenarios came to pass. In fact, even Obama wins on March 4, in Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island (he managed a win in Vermont) would have increased calls for Clinton to leave the race. When she won all three of those states, the focus turned to Pennsylvania, where the final battle was supposed to take place.

Now, though, the Obama campaign is playing down Pennsylvania, and the Clinton campaign is going along. Over the next several days, Obama will make swings through North Carolina and West Virginia. Clinton will travel to West Virginia before making a swing through Indiana. Indiana and North Carolina voters cast ballots on May 6, while West Virginia holds their primary a week later, on May 13.

So, for anyone who thought the race would be over by any of the aforementioned contests, you're in good company: Virtually everyone thought the same thing. We have five weeks to get the same impression about Pennsylvania, but given the way things have shaken out so far, both campaigns have no illusions that the contest will continue well into May, at least.

When's the first time a candidate schedules a trip to Puerto Rico? Politics Nation hopes to bring you that visit live from the scene.

Posted by Reid Wilson at 11:30 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Democrats in Florida and Michigan are in two very different situations. Sunshine Staters have given up the prospects of being allowed to vote a second time, while Michiganders have sent their own June 3 re-vote proposal to both candidates for their inspection. After the developments yesterday, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton sent out statements that once again have both of them misconstruing the process to make themselves look good.

"Today's announcement brings us no closer to counting the votes of the nearly 1.7 million people who voted in January. We hope the Obama campaign shares our belief that Florida's voters must be counted and cannot be disenfranchised," read Clinton spokesman Phil Singer's indignant statement after Florida.

"We hope that all parties can agree on a fair seating of the Florida delegates so that Florida can participate in the Democratic Convention, and we look forward to working with the Florida Democratic Party and competing vigorously in the state so that Barack Obama can put Florida back into the Democratic column in November," the Obama campaign chimed in.

Clinton's camp seems to think the process is controlled by voters, and it's not. There is no provision in the Constitution for a primary, meaning, as the Supreme Court upholds, it's not up to the people to be able to vote, it's up to the parties to be allowed to choose a nominee. However they do that is up to, solely, the Democratic and Republican National Committees. Therefore, no one in Florida, or anywhere, has been disenfranchised this year: They can't be enfranchised to begin with.

In Obama's case, it makes no sense that delegates should be seated in any way other than allocated in the January 29 primary. In baseball, if a batter refuses to get into the batter's box, the umpire can let a pitcher hurl away at an empty plate, and the umpire can call anything a strike. Obama's argument that he didn't campaign in the state is akin to a petulant batter: Just because he didn't show up doesn't mean the contest isn't going to happen. (Bonus points, though, for using the word "Florida" four times in one sentence.

Obama's camp also released a longer statement on what they called a complex re-vote proposal in Michigan. "Considering the fact that Senator Clinton is currently trying to prevent and delay votes in Texas from being counted because she didn't like the outcome, it's pretty apparent that the Clinton campaign's views on voting are dependent on their own political interest. Hillary Clinton herself said in January that the Michigan primary 'didn't count for anything.' Now, she is cynically trying to change the rules at the eleventh hour for her own benefit. We received a very complex proposal for Michigan re-vote legislation today and are reviewing it to make sure that any solution for Michigan is fair and practical. We continue to believe a fair seating of the delegation deserves strong consideration," the statement said.

The statement is a less than subtle call for an even split of delegates, never mind that Clinton won 56% of the vote and "undecided" and "uncommitted," two place-holders for Obama, took 40%. So while Obama's campaign stalls for time, prodding the legislature's plan for holes that would unfairly benefit their rival, their definition of "fair" seems to be malleable. And

And if the Obama camp prefers the argument that they weren't even on the ballot in Michigan, they might be reminded that it was their decision to withdraw Obama's name from the ballot. No one -- not even the chairs of the four early states that forced candidates to sign a no-campaign pledge -- forced them to do so. In fact, other campaigns, lacking the financial resources to compete in Michigan, happily followed suit.

Whatever the outcome -- a re-vote in Michigan and a Florida split seems most likely at the moment -- both Democrats are understandably trying to spin the results in their favor. Both positions the candidates have staked out, though, just ring hollow.

Posted by Reid Wilson at 10:30 AM | Email Author | Permalink

In early December, amid stagnant poll numbers, Mitt Romney began facing the serious prospect that an underground whisper campaign, spreading rumors about his Mormon faith, would sink his bid for the White House. To counter misperceptions and change the discussion, Romney offered a speech, at the George H.W. Bush presidential library, on the place of religion in the public square.

Many thought the idea of a major address, coming just a month before the Iowa caucuses, was a fatal mistake. But in the aftermath, Romney's poll numbers went up, and his campaign ended up doing well enough to earn more delegates than any candidate but John McCain. By successfully navigating the dangerous waters of a speech on religion, Romney not only kept his candidacy afloat, but finished in better position in several states than pre-speech polling suggested.

Today, Barack Obama faces the same challenge on a similarly taboo yet crucial factor in this year's presidential contest, when he will discuss race in what his campaign is billing as a major address at Philadelphia's National Constitution Center. Like Romney, Obama's speech is a dangerous one to give; but like Romney, Obama can use the address to bolster his campaign.

Race and religion are two topics that neither candidate wants as part of an election debate. For Obama, bringing up race can hurt the image he's spent his political lifetime crafting. Race brings up hundreds of years of negative history and the notion that the conflict is still about one group fighting another. Obama's appeal is the opposite, as a post-racial, post-partisan politician, and about moving past those divisions. Any time people are reminded of the past, they're not looking toward Obama's future.

On the other hand, Hillary Clinton, John McCain and the Republican National Committee won't touch the issue of race either, for fear of instant branding as racists. There are plenty of obvious differences between Obama and McCain, should they face off in November, most notably age, experience and their thoughts on the war in Iraq. Clinton faces her own danger, risking the destruction of the modern Democratic coalition by alienating a hugely important part of the base. Opponents who talk about race against Obama will only speed their own destruction.

The electorate won't say it, but both topics weigh on at least some voters' minds. That division was most obvious in Mississippi, where white voters showed more obvious reluctance to vote for the African American candidate than they had in other states. Too, Obama's poll numbers in several primary states have dramatically over-stated his actual support, suggesting at least some role for the Bradley effect.

Like Romney, who attended the funeral of Mormon President Gordon B. Hinckley in the days leading up to February 5, Obama has a religion problem too. Rumors that Obama is Muslim were somewhat disproven last week with the release of several videos of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But Wright's inflammatory statements just substituted one crushing Obama burden for another.

Today's speech will reportedly address Wright's comments as well as the role of race in the campaign. Despite the obstacles, Obama can turn that into a positive, primarily by focusing on a larger picture of the future. In Barack Obama's America, every race can be lifted up, and every race can benefit, he should say.

The difference between Obama and other, older African American leaders is generational. Obama, along with other, new African American leaders like Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty, did not live through the tumultuous 1960s, when civil rights leaders marched through the streets and clashed with racist authorities in the Deep South.

Instead, they grew up as the first generation of African Americans became millionaires, after segregation and during a period when, compared with the rest of American history, race relations had never been better.

That doesn't mean there isn't anger in the African American community. But casting the discussion about race as about moving the country forward, instead of as a conflict between two inherently adversarial sides, is the key for Obama's speech.

Obama's "hope" slogan, dotting yard signs across the country, is speaking to people. Anything other than the same on race relations and Obama could wind up stumbling over what could become a make-or-break moment in his bid to change history.

Posted by Reid Wilson at 08:30 AM | Email Author | Permalink