I agree with your points in general about the inherent biases in polls. However, the changes are unlikely to be biased becauase the biases should stay constant and cancel out when you compute the day-to-day change.

The fact Obama's poll numbers are dropping is telling us that the Wright controversy and his mis-handling of it are hurting.

Is this a temporary bump or a permanent effect?

That only time can tell.

"Results are based on telephone interviews with 6,117 registered voters, aged 18 and older, conducted April 21-27, 2008. For results based on the total sample of registered voters, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±1 percentage point.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only)."

....and they have her up over Obama against McCain by as much as 17 points, 14 point lead among Democrats generally ... and even a little lead now among the young too.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/106960/Clinto ns-vs-Obamas-Strengths-General-Election. aspx

The Superdelegates have nothing to do with the pledged delegates!

Their job is to look beyond silly caucus and open-to-anyone enrollment contests and wins in states that will have little to do with electing a Democratic Party President.

Their job is to SELECT THE BEST CANDIDATE TO RUN AGAINST McCAIN.

PLEASE get this thru your Obama head.

With tracking polls, you have days dropping out and new ones coming in.  The more positive ones for Obama have dropped out and yet Clinton has only a small lead in Gallup and Rasmussen. Meanwhile, Obama is ahead in several other national polls.

This whole things will take some time to shake out. It is possible that Obama won't convincingly bounce back and won't get back to an 8-10 point lead. But we will have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, superdelegates are casting their votes and Obama is now +5 for the day.

Be careful of those kinds of comments. Calling support among African-Americans "lock step" is a borderline offensive comment that assumes that his support is only built on racial identity. I also think it's a complete distortion to say that he's alienating Latinos. The trend suggests that the diverse Latin community breaks down by age similar to other voting blocks. He also never said "bitter whites". Find that comment anywhere.

Obama also alienates Gays and Lesbians. He threw the Gay Community under the bus early on by his utilizing McGlurkin and a bunch of Anti-Gay clergy to jump start his campaign in South Carolina.

But I'd rather take a shot at winning by doing the right thing than cave in to fear and old-school politicking and try to win the way we've always tried to win.

Clinton's 50%+1 Strategy has failed us so many times before; it's just not a robust method of winning elections; it's lazy.

Hillary get most of the women vote and that is not polarizing???

On top of sharing a common background, Obama's policies are very good for those interested in civil rights and poverty issues; blacks have a lot of unity when it comes to voting for these things.  Unity is not polarization.

Obama never lost 11 in a row and has never been behind in the delegate count.

I'm not blaming Clinton for any of that.  She's been very reserved about criticizing Obama about all those issues, overall.

I just think Hillary supporting Obama would have the Democrats in a much stronger, more unified position than they are right now.  Obviously that's speculation on my part, but I think having Clinton on Obama's side would be doing wonders with his working-class support.

It's just frustrating for those of us who saw how unlikely a Clinton nomination was months ago.

The power of the angry feelings in this fair battle of Democrats is truly, truly puzzling to me. I just can't fathom why people come into a forum like this (on either side) and spew their frustration out with comments that border on the extreme.

Hillary isn't to blame for anything. Some may say that she started the negative campaigning, but I won't. It doesn't even matter at this point. Both have engaged the negative tone. She's made mistakes. He's made mistakes. They're both flawed candidates.

Obama supporters don't see him as a messiah. It's not a cult. It's not a bunch of lemmings. Hillary supporters, likewise, aren't any of those things. It's counterproductive to suggest that people in our Party are excited about their own candidate. It destroys us.

The choice is about leadership style. It's a legitimate and intellectual choice as much as it's an emotional one. Pick your side, but keep the emotions in check.

Maybe because he has approximately 2 years of National spotlight (and in reality a lot less,) while she has been in the national spotlight for going on 16 years. Just a thought...

Um, nice try, but Hillary had all the establishment support in Pennsylvania.

Who said anything about what Kos does with polls? Who called this blog "divisive"? Why don't you stick to the issue at hand?

It's not my math. It's math. Not even hard math. Just addition, subtraction and the teeny bit of algebra you need to figure out the percentages Hillary would have to win in the remaining states to surpass Obama in the delegate count -- which, like math, isn't subjective. It's counting.

Maybe there should be other things spinners try and turn subjective. Should the Clinton campaign have their own, more favorable alphabet? Maybe supporters can argue her electability using special new street maps that only contain Clinton-supporting roads.

Jerome, you've always been of the belief here that Wright is a nearly fatal wound on Obama. I see it as a harmful distraction, but I do wonder if the folks who find Obama to be synonymous with "Wright" to be those unlikely to ever be fully comfortable with an Obama presidency.

This isn't to call them racist, or whatever. But really, (and there's a more interesting diary in this someday. I tried last night, but an insomniatic pre-schooler and some passed-prime wine killed my prose...) I think the "Wright/Obama" effect isn't people who now question Obama's judgement... but people who see two charismatic blacks standing before adoring audiences... and while one is inspiring, soothing and mainstream, the other scares the crap out of people. As much as I hate Matthews, his comment the other night about them being two sides of the same coin, was illustrative. I think people really see Obama, and fear inside he's Wright. Would Jon Stewart's joke to that effect been so funny without the element of truth?

Anyway, if you're making that leap, if you can't see the two men and separate them as pastor and perishoner, if you can't see this is a standard we've never held for Presidential Candidates before (have we had one so aligned with a church before? If W is a born-again, why do we know so little about his pastors? (Other than known anti-Semite Billy Graham) well, something was bound to bring that fear up anyway.

D'ja think?

I think you misunderstood (and BTW, I voted for Hillary in VA)- what I'm trying to say is that Rev. Wright sermons were available for a very long time but she only used them against Obama when the race was settled- she should have brought up the issue much earlier- but if you follow reports on her campaign (e.g.,  the article about Penn in TNR) you would know that it is poorly run. For example here in Fairfax, the FC Democratic Party offered help to Hillary with voting lists and canvassing but her campaign tirned the offre down. Her Ballston quarters are so centralized that they refuse offers of local help (the information I have does not address Obama but I assume this assistance was also offered to him). Thus, she was overwhelmed in caucaus (sic?) states because she had little ground help. Her campaign strategy made sense as a favorite, though shunning any kind of help is always a bad idea, but she never had a plan B in case she trailed.  The reason for the debacle is that her loyalty streak is so deep (Bushian in proportion) that she is unable to dispense with advisers (compare with Obama and Wright).  If Hillary had fired Penn after Iowa and done some agressive oppo research, she would not be where she is right now; but she again became complacent after NH. If we are to judge campaigns as qualifications for the WH then Obama will be a good president and Hillary will not; though, I will be the first to say that it is not necessarily true. What I do know is that Obama has shown exceptional organizational skills, a skill needed for the presidency. And what happened to all the money Hillary had? And btw, what the hell is a HR?

Agreed

No - I agree with you on the comparison between NC and VA. Basically...Virginia = NC minus AAs plus educated whites. So it balances out.

The state of NC is a bit more southern, however - and that is reflected in the racial attitudes of the educated whites in NC. The educated whites in the research triangle are similar to the educated white Democrats in Richmond/Roanoke but NOVA is more like Oregon, frankly. That's the biggest difference. The NOVA turnout machine is pretty well refined, as well, thanks to several really close contested elections where both the primary electorate and GE electorate was activated (2005/2006). Also - NOVA voters are fully federalized because of their proximity to DC. They view campaigns through a much more national lens.

Obama won Virginia by 29 points. I see North Carolina at about 16 points thanks to these differences + some momentum for HRC + Obama losing support amongst Republican crossovers that he enjoyed in January and February.

Unless Rev. Wright pops out again, we'll see that wave crest and recede, and then NC will probably return to it's natural demographic equilibrium.

The Obama campaign has engaged in no sexism.  Why are people voting for Clinton based on sexist attacks?  If they do exist, they're coming from the worst parts of the media (Matthews, Fox) or Republicans.

He didn't say that second comment.

Secondly, to suggest that nothing had changed from the Philidelphia speech to Tuesday of this week is hiding your head in the sand something fierce.

Wright demonstrated, irrefutably, that he was slapping Obama's gesture of friendship away and working to destroy him.  Anyone would be right to sever all ties.

Tell that to the 13,000 at Assembly Hall last night in Bloomington.  Versus Clinton's 3,000 on Friday night past.  (Plus finals are over and students are leaving, while Clinton's rally was during dead week).

Hillary just might get that 10 point victory in Indiana - http://www.theindychannel.com/politics/1 6106143/detail.html?rss=ind&psp=news

If she wins NC (at all) and Indiana (handily), then Obama would have to win Oregon to have a shot, notwithstanding his lead in pledged delegates.

Oh yes, beating the Kucinich and Gravel "machine" in the Michigan primary is an obvious testament to her electoral strength.  Also, taking from your post obviously Kucinich and Gravel are the smart politicians while Biden and Richardson obviously can't hold there salt because they listened to the rules.

There's no evidence that the gay or latino votes would definitely be "thrown under the bus."  

Obama is very willing to reach out to these groups, and will.  He's already better on policy for gays than Clinton, and better for many latinos on foreign relations as well.

Latinos are going for Obama now, since the Richardson endorsement, and latinos know that the Clintons threw Richardson under the bus, and they don't like it.  The Clintons also threw gays under the bus also.

"not ready for a black president," than this country is beyond help.

Am I the only person, who after 8 years of a chimpanzee in the White House wonders whether this great experiment has just about reached the end of the line?

"Bottom line: America America is not ready for a Black President"

If the bottomline is America's racism, then it's time to decide if you're fighting on the side of that racism or against it.

If you truly believe that's the bottomline, then voting for Obama becomes the only ethical choice.

(PS to make myself clear: this doesn't apply to those people who feel the bottomline is different -- the ethical imperative applies only to those who feel that it's racism that is the paramount bottomline that is hurting Obama's candidacy)

"PS-you earned a troll rec for the bottom half of your post. Comparing Hillary to a frothing from the mouth bigot doesn't sit well with me or many others."

MyDD guideline: #  * Do not troll rate (rating as 0) another user's comment unless it is a comment that is an attack on another user. Abusing this privilege will result in all your ratings being erased and/or getting a warning, or being banned.

Should I troll rate you for this?

Nah. But hopefully Jerome will when he reads it.

I uprated them because while I don't agree with the comment it is not worthy of a troll rating. It has been discussed, at length, on this site that you aren't supposed to troll rate people simply because you don't like what they had to say.

have you seen the ohio and penn results in the dem primary?

people trust obama more, and he lost.

everyone knows politicians lie.

"I think we are just tired of this useless race that is, for all intents and purposes, over."

That's for sure. I personally feel bleak because the race has turned so unpleasant and is hinging on such trivialities and non-substantive issues. It is tiring and boring all at the same time. I do know however that he needs merely to ride this month out and then march on to the fall. There is nothing to suggest that the supers are going to do anything but they have been doing even this week--moving steadily towards Obama.

anybody who says that they know that either of these candidates are a sure GE loser is talking out of their nether regions.

Quit talking out of your ass.  You cannot presume to know the preferences of 120 million American voters six months from now.

We can argue which factors will matter most and what can happen between now and then, but no one is a "sure" loser at this point.

I'm starting to think the same.

I did. If you take out 4/27 and add yesterday's you end up with 6% different average, hence the fifference between the two individual days must be 24%.

Am I doing anything wrong?

This just sounds like more whining from Obama supporters who think he can't win the general election- looking to put blame on someone else before he even loses.

Whomever becomes the nominee is totally responsible for reaching out to the other side and uniting the party for the general election and reaching out to Independents and moderate Republicans. Whomever the nominee is, if they lose the general is NOT the fault of the losing nominee. This is true if it is Obama or Clinton and they would both be out campaigning for the winner in the general election campaign along with all the other democrats.  

looking at this primary as whole. Forget the caucus states and republican states that are out of play like:
okl, tenn., south carolina, utah, kans, etc.

but looking at the critical states:

it's hard to believe that Hillary would run behind obama in any critical state.

yet it's clear that obama could very well run behind clinton in:
penn, mich., florida, nj., ohio,

Now there is an argument about adding new critical states like:
col, virginia, and n.c.,

but that would truly by a roll of the dice.

obama people act like what I just listed above doesn't exist, and we should just end the primary and take what happens

Today is a big superdelegate day for Obama. The page reports that is currently +5.

Clinton will be gaining some soon with the NY add-ons, but other add-ons will favor Obama.

the effects of these issues are done and gone, Obama has been bringing them up this entire primary season. There's nothing new here. I think it is a stretch to say that these issues are something Obama and Republicans are holding back.  These tired old ruses don't amount to much to stop her path to victory in the electoral college.

OMIFGOD not another Obamabot with a fistfull of spreadsheets showing how they have "teh Numbers!! teh Numbers!!"

And Hillary should just get out.

This is SOOOO early February 2008!!

Wake up, Bamabot, your world is crumbling in front of you, along with your Precious' poll numbers and unfavorable ratings.

First, this is republican style swift-boating and it makes me sick that this discussion is going on among democrats. How many nefarious connections do the Clintons have after their many years in politics? We are not dragging them through the slime or reminding everyone again and again of the ease with which they tell us lies. Nonetheless, I'll answer your question. Obama, in his remarkable speech, treated the Reverend with a degree of respect that one would expect, given his history of doing tremendous good in his community. When Wright appeared on Bill Moyers, he seemed to give some context to his words, which was helpful to promote understanding. Then in the following days, when everyone expected this controversy to end, Wright exasperated it. He became harmful to the healing process that this country so desperately needs to embark upon. That's why Obama was, which heavy heart, forced to further distance himself from his pastor.