Yet another poll out today on the effect of the Wright controversy and subsequent Obama speech. Seems neither has had that much of an influence, according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. Both Clinton and Obama are pulling 45 percent support from registered Democrats, with Obama up from 43 percent two weeks ago. If anything, he appears to be doing better with white voters than he was a month ago, when Clinton led 51 to 39 percent. The gap is now down to 49 to 41 percent. These polls were conducted on Monday and Tuesday, which means the speech and coverage of the issues had a week to set in. I think this just further confirms my belief that many Americans, when asked to engage in the real issues, are understanding of and likely to agree with the assessment of race in America that Obama offered in the speech. Of course, these figures are for registered Democrats, and Obama has shown some slippage with conservatives and Republican voters, according to this poll, so it's hard to say what kind of effect the issue would have in the general election.
But the poll also contained a significantly disconcerting figure for Democrats in general: one-fifth of both Clinton and Obama supporters said they would vote for McCain if their first-choice candidate isn't the nominee.
--Kate Sheppard
