Poll shows why Obama finally broke with Wright

NY Times:

Senator Barack Obama’s aura of inevitability in the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination has diminished after his loss in the Pennsylvania primary and amid the furor over his former pastor, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

The poll was conducted Friday through Tuesday, largely before Mr. Obama’s news conference on Tuesday, in which he denounced his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., and may not have fully captured the impact of the controversy or Mr. Obama’s response.

But the survey found that Mr. Obama, whose lead in the race for the delegates needed to secure the nomination has given him a commanding position over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton since February, is now perceived to be in a much tighter fight. Fifty-one percent of Democratic primary voters say they expect Mr. Obama to win their party’s nomination, down from 69 percent a month ago. Forty-eight percent of Democrats say he is the candidate with the best chance of beating Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee, down from 56 percent a month ago.

...


The timing of the poll is key. It was finished before Obama reacted. In other words, his internal polling had to show the damage being done by Wright on top of his loss in Pennsylvania. I think the polling forced him to do what he should have done when the controversy first arose. He could not get away with a conversation on race spin this time.

BTW, one of the keys to Rev. Wrights success is that he is a showman and entertainer as well as being a demagogue. The closing "snippet" on Brit Hume's show last night was from one of his performances this weekend where he demonstrated the difference between the way the University of Michigan band performs and the Grambling State University band performs. Not only was he entertaining and funny, he was dead on in his imitation. If he had been celebrating diversity rather than making some racist point he would probably have been hailed.

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