Behind but not beyond
Michael Meyers, Obama blew it, really nails it, on what Obama has missed making happen, not only in his speech, but in his campaign message about race:
...I expected Obama, who up to now had been steering a perfect course away from the racial boxes of the past, to challenge racial labels and so-called black experiences. We're all mixed up, and if we haven't yet been by the process of miscegenation, trans-racial adoptions and interracial marriage, we sure ought to get used to how things will be in short order.
The speech Obama recently gave on racial division has not quickly reversed the damage the Wright association has done. At best, it hardened the reaction, at worst it inflicted even more damage to Obama. According to a Insider Advantage (a shout-out for their Texas polling in the primary) poll, done March 19th.
First, IA says that 82% knew about Obama's speech, and about the controversy surrounding the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. That's remarkable, in this day and age of media fragmentation, and that sort of saturation means it's basically reached every voter in some form or another.
The coverage of this has been bubbling up in the rightwing blogosphere over the past year. But once the "God damn America" video clip hit the wire on ABCNews the morning of the 13th, all hell was unleashed through the rightwing blogosphere, the rightwing talk radio, Fox News and WSJ-- the modern day conservative propoganda machine in action. Obama, who has never personally experienced the onslaught of the rightwing smear, came out the next night with a response, to try and finish it off on a Friday night. No such luck. It raged on over the internet all weekend, and then re-emerged even stronger on Monday. The speech by Obama, hastily written for Tuesday night, did not change opinions.
Among those aware of the situation and the speech, 52 percent are less likely to vote for Obama, up slightly from 49 percent of among all voters. None of the polls demographics (pdf) jump on either side. Blacks, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Whites, are all less likely to support Obama now. Just 19 percent are more likely to support Obama (thats his floor), and 27 percent feel the same about Obama.
IA is right, saying: "The disturbing numbers for Obama are the independent voters. By 56% to 13%, they said they're less likely to vote for him because of the speech." He may have lost a big chunk of what got him this far. Clinton has been beating Obama among Democrats all along and only through having Independents supporting him in the primaries and caucuses, is Obama leading. It'll be a month before we see voting again, and any sort of confirmation of how this plays out in the long-term.
There are those who hold the mis-guided opinion that only paranoid holdouts believe that Clinton has a shot at getting the nomination. Maybe they will go into cahoots with Al Giordano's Plan B, a Abbie Hoffman wannabee that hopes to see the '08 Democratic convention turn out like '68, and plans on "sitting it out" if Clinton does win the nomination-- there's your nutty paranoid holdout. Calm, this has a long ways to go.
Neither candidate will win enough pledged delegates to win the nomination through that route. By the end of the primary calendar, its very likely that both of the candidates will be able to point to scenarios whereby they lead by either the popular or the delegate count, and the super-delegates will eventually decide their votes. I don't expect that the nomination will be concluded until August.
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