Daily tracking polls are useless. Besides the fact that the majority of the country has already, just look at how many times (and by how much) they have swung just within the past two weeks.

Barack Obama is a different kind of candidate, if he ran a traditional race, he just might have lost this race, but he's not so he's Winning It.

Go Obama --Lead the Way

I can't stand pollsters and how self-important they believe that they are. This statement takes the cake:

The tracking data over the next several days will be a crucial indicator of the lasting impact, if any, of the Wright controversy.

That's absolute nonsense. Why several days? In my pollster opinion, I believe that the more this controversial stuff is out there, the more people get desensatized to it and it becomes a "so what." That will take time and won't be reflected over a couple of days. We'll know about the impact, if any, 6 to 8 months from now, not in a couple of days.

From the L.A. Times:

"Obama blew it"

Michael Meyers (executive director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition and a former assistant national director of the NAACP.)

"...considering the nation's undivided attention to this all-important speech, which gave him an unrivaled opportunity to lift us out of racial and racist thinking, Obama blew it."

"...Obama gave us a full measure of racial rhetoric about how some of us with an "untrained ear" -- meaning whites and Asians and Latinos -- don't understand and can't relate to the so-called black experience."

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oew-meyers20mar20,1,5615767.story?track=rss

I agree that Obama's "More Perfect Union" speech is thought provoking rather than flashy, and instantaneous polling cannot measure the effect.

Thanks to youtube it can be watched, rewatched, and recommended ad infinitum, rippling outward for a long time.

I don't imagine historically significant speeches are always recognized as such when they are delivered. I read that Lincoln departed the scene after giving his Gettysburg Address thinking the speech a failure. I am not equating Obama's speech with the Gettysburg Address, but I can easily see both being taught in schools.

Let's say everything works out in Clinton's favor and she gets 325 of the remaining 569 delegates left. Obama gets 244. That puts the final tally at 1871 Obama and 1819 Clinton.

There are 334 superdelegates left. That would mean that 206 of 334 superdelegates would have to vote for Clinton to be the nominee. 154 of 334 would have to vote for Obama for him to be the nominee.

I'll take Obama's chances.

So if Monday and Tuesday were both 49-42 and the average was 48-43 that means that Wednesday was

46 to 45.

Right?

That means crap coming from Michael Myers. Julian Bond and the NAACP have been in the tank for the Clintons since the beginning. Do you not remember how Bond came out hard in favor of seating FL without a re-vote, early on?

This is a problem I have with Gallup and a few other blogs that repeat their analysis. You have to watch trends, not look at ups and downs from day to day.

If there is a steady uptick over 3 days, then you can come to the conclusion that the speech did help, but to make that claim (or even suggest it) based on one day of polling data, seems like a rudimentary mistake ... that a lot of news outlets are making.

Watch the trend until Friday, then you can say for sure, don't be like CNN and their "popcorn" political reporting.

This is a problem I have with Gallup and a few other blogs that repeat their analysis. You have to watch trends, not look at ups and downs from day to day.

If there is a steady uptick over 3 days, then you can come to the conclusion that the speech did help, but to make that claim (or even suggest it) based on one day of polling data, seems like a rudimentary mistake ... that a lot of news outlets are making.

Watch the trend until Friday, then you can say for sure, don't be like CNN and their "popcorn" political reporting.

Some basic rules regarding posting:

If poll numbers move in Obama's direction: Proof that his inspiring message is getting through.

If poll numbers move in Clinton's direction: What you expect? These are useless tracking polls that don't prove anything.

If Obama gives a speech criticizing Clinton: Nothing like speaking truth to power! Inspiring as well.

If Clinton gives a speech criticizing Obama: Why is she sliming such a good and decent person. Probably because she's a slimeball herself. What a monster!

Yes, tracking polls suck as an indicator of election results, and can even be destructive as springboards for slanted, baseless media "stories"

But they are marginally useful for getting a snapshot of public opinion. In the case of The Speech, it'll be interesting to see how the downward trend of his numbers of late (resulting from the Wright flap) are reversed. Somehow, I think it will be a slow burn, and may take some time to sink in, but I wouldn't be surprised if, at the end of the day, The Speech actually takes him higher than he was before Preacher-gate.

Hopefully, too, as we watch it unfold, some cable news heads will start to talk about parallels between Wright and the Religious Right (also blaming americans, specifically teh gays and the liberals, for 9/11) and shaming Dem leaders like Gore, Edwards, Kennedy, whomever, into calling the media on what is a made-up BS story and subjecting Obama to a public flogging for going to church and not storming out when his pastor says something controversial.

Seriously the cin these same polls

There is a long way to 4/22, and lots of BS to listen to on TV, and wherever I turn I bump into idiots. (TPM is my refuge.)

The polls about Obama are depressing me although I know quite well that they do not mean much at this point.

What depresses me most is that it seems that people have not learned the consequences of a stupid vote.

Our Idiot President has the Midas touch in reverse: everything he touches goes to dust. The American economy is like high speed freight train. It takes a lot of perseverance and incompetence to stop it, and guess what, it took seven years, but the President now has brought it to a halt. I guess he will say he is responsible, but nowadays taking responsability counts for zilch.

And here I am, in my northern Indiana 'burb, talking to my neighbors who, with few exceptions, voted for W in droves, they are still buying SUVs (how idiot can you be), and for the first time in a very long time I have see the real deal in Senator Obama.

Will see how this works out. I am disgusted with the Clinton, (not the Clinton fans, my wife is one of them) and if they pull a blue dress nomination, I'm not gonna be bothered to vote in the fall.

Felix

forgetta 'bout it....

Hillary's on top.

Anecdotal evidence is the next most reliable thing to a tracking poll for taking the country's political pulse. But for what it's worth, here's mine for the day.

Here in Washington State we have a multi-level caucus system beginning with precinct delegate selection, the results of which you heard about on Super Saturday. This leads to legislative district conventions which lead to congressional district conventions which culminate in the State-wide convention in Olympia. The next level, the legislative district conventions, will be held in mind-April.

Anyway, a good friend of mine, a Clinton stalwart, was selected on Super Saturday as a precinct delegate to her legislative district convention. She emailed me this morning to let me know that she had a chance to listened to Obama's race speech yesterday. It was the first Obama speech she had ever listened to in its entirety. Being a Clinton stalwart , she sat down to the speech fully prepared to stuff her fingers in her ears and sing the familiar "la la la" song which, sadly, most of us zealots on both sides have sung at one time or another during this campaign. To make a long story short, and spare you the emotional details of a profound political conversion, she listened to the speech, then listened again, then listened a third time. She wrote me this morning to let me know that she now plans to lobby and cast her ballot for Obama at the legislative convention.

Perhaps that one point up-tick in today's Gallup poll is a sign of bigger things to come. Just thought I'd share the renewed hope my good friend gave me this morning. It may not mean much to you, but it does to me.

Eric Kleefeld says: "Obama's big speech on race relations might be starting to fix the damage from the Jeremiah flap."

Why can't TPM and other commentators step out of conventional thinking about politics. They keep trying to fit Obama, his campaign and his vision for America into a conventional political box and to analyze and explain it in conventional terms. That's why polling is so off, that's why commentary seems so slanted. Obama is re-writing the rules of running for office. With integrity, he by most accounts went against the sage "political advice" and did what he felt needed to be done. He engaged in a thoughtful, insightful, deeply personal analysis of racial divisions and what might help bridge them for the good of the nation. Jon Stewart quipped wisely that Obama was talking to Americans as if they were adults.

The controversy that swirled around Rev. Wrights comments are fed, in Obama's view, by Black anger and White resentment. There is no simple fix to that. It is a painful, complex and difficult topic to broach, discuss and work to lessen if not to resolve.

The TPM and the media generally seem to believe that Obama should only talk and associate with people he agrees with and sycophants who agree with him? Isn't this what's wrong with Bush? Don't we want a president who can communicate with the full spectrum of American views and interests, even Americans who are frustrated, bitter and angry?

Continuing to insist that politics be warfare in the Bush-Clinton mode and reporting it as battles fought and won, misses the point of the Obama campaign and the opportunity it offers the nation and its future. Can TPM find someone to report on this campaign who thinks outside the coventional establishment political box? That's where the most dynamic candidate of our time is operating, and TPM is missing it.