Overall, 55% of voters told us that they were "disturbed" by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright videos that circulated so widely on cable TV and the Internet.

Melanie, pass me the smelling salts. Hurry! That horrible *man* is on TV again. I can't believe they let this Reverend Wright walk around loose! He's a menace! It's all too much... {faint}

And while his positive rating fell only slightly in the past two weeks, to 49%, Hillary's fell further, dropping down to 37%, its lowest in this poll since March of 2001.

Wait, what? That's really interesting, I wonder why it's not being reported more widely. What was Clinton at in the previous poll?

Why would the last two weeks have been *more* damaging for Clinton than Obama? Could that be fallout from the Ferraro thing? Is it some sort of backlash, kind of like how media lambasting of Clinton right before NH may have actually hurt Obama because the smearing only made voters sympathetic to Clinton? Is the whole thing unrelated to scandal and more about Clinton's diminishing perceived chances? What's going on here?

Once again the Clinton Talking Points Memo seems to soft pedal any good news for Obama.

Electability, Obama ahead of McCain, Clinton behind McCain.

From Chuck Todd:
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/03/26/821438.aspx
"And he still sports a net-positive personal rating of 49-32, which is down only slightly from two weeks ago when it was 51-28. Again, the biggest shift in those negative numbers were among Republicans.

On one of the most critical questions we've been tracking for a few months, Obama showed resilience. When asked if the three presidential candidates could be successful in uniting the country if they were elected president, 60% of all voters believed Obama could be successful at doing this, 58% of all voters said McCain could unite the country while only 46% of voters said the same about Clinton. All three candidates saw dips on this issue, by the way. In January, 67% thought Obama could unite the country; 68% thought McCain could do it; and 55% said Clinton would be able to pull it off.

The fact they all three dropped equally in the last three months is a sign that the campaign is becoming more ideological and partisan.

In the head-to-head matchups, there weren't huge shifts in the numbers with Obama and Clinton dead even at 45% in the national Democratic primary matchup (a slight increase for Obama from early March). In the general-election matchups, Obama led McCain by 2 points and McCain led Clinton by 2 points; all margin of error results and nothing to get too excited over.
.....
Why? Because among Obama voters, Clinton has a net-negative personal rating (35-43) while Clinton voters have a net-positive view of Obama (50-29). Taken together, this appears to be evidence that Obama, intially, should have the easier time uniting the party than Clinton.

Considering the doom-and-gloom some predicted for Obama with regard to the Wright controversy, the overall tenor of the electorate appears to still be favorable for him."

What about Bosnia impact on HRC? C'mon. She's net negative now in favorables. Doesn't that deserve a block quote??

The big news in the poll is that Obama was only hurt slightly by Wright whereas Clinton is currently in freefall over Bosnia. I realize the poll was during the worst period for her, but it's there.

A more interesting fact....

This same polling has Obama ahead of McCain by 2, and Hillary BEHIND McCain by 3. Interesting. Very interetsing.

Chuck Todd was hysterical on MSNBC just now...discussing how they did this polling Monday and Tuesday to see how badly Obama had been hurt by Wright....only to find out Hillary is the one who was hurt. Whoopsie!

Another interetsing discussion point... they discoverd that most of Obama's negatives were heavily located in older deep southern Democratic areas..... places Democrats never win anyway....

But Obama didn't lose ANY ground in the Midwest, Northeast, Northwest, Southwest and West.

More importantly, Hillary's favorables are in the gutter, with little chance for redemption. Obama's fairly intact!

Let's sum this up in language that alllllll people can understand.

Obama is rubber, Clinton is glue... whatever you bounces off of him and sticks to you.

WHOOP WHOOP!

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOBAMA! 2008

You know Wright is not a 30 or 40 year old fiery black guy starting a radical movement. He's 80 years old. Just how much can you pile on an old man without getting some backlash from those not convinced that there's much authentic in all the supposed shock and outrage.

Even if Obama's negatives go up, people are still going to "hold their nose" and vote for him if the alternative is John "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" McCain.

I mean come on. Once the general election rolls around, people are not going to vote for John "10,000 years in Iraq" anymore in November then they would have in January.

As Chuck Todd said on the Teevee, if THIS is what happens to Obama's poll numbers after the two worst weeks of the campaign for him in terms of media coverage, they should feel pretty good about their chances right now

People really do want change.

Is Hillary going to be forced to go positive? Maybe tell the truth a bit more? Release her tax returns? Stop sending threatening letters to other Dems? The coming week should be interesting after this poll.

Hillary's fell further, dropping down to 37%, its lowest in this poll since March of 2001.

Um ... isn't this the real story here?

Overall, 55% of voters told us that they were "disturbed" by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright videos that circulated so widely on cable TV and the Internet.

Well, hell, "disturbed" is a vague word. I thought some of the things he said were stupid, but I was raised Catholic, and Wright has a long way to go before he disturbs me as much as Benny Ratzinger does on an almost monthly basis.

And Wright's words have no bearing on my support for Obama. I didn't blame Kerry for the varied and multiple woes of the Catholic Church, nor did I blame Clinton or Gore for the oddities regularly put on display by Baptists. And I like Quakers, but I hate Nixon.

Next.

So, uh, people don't like Hillary? Now why would that be?

I do not see the relationship of Clinton's numbers in the discussion of Obama and his 20-year relationship with a racist and hate-America church, reverend, and community. Anyway, I think the impact on Obama are just beginning. Consider that he has not disassociated himself from the church, reverend, or community. Second, consider that, even today, he still defends Rev. Wright. Third, consider that the only criticism has been within the Democratic primary process and some of the MSM. Wait until the Republicans and others get going. Racism is a potent issue and Obama has since shown his with is "typical White person" comments. And, worse, if there can be worse for a national candidate, the hate-America aspect of this will linger and be volatile throughout the campaign. Personally, I do not see how Obama can recover from this since he insists on continuing to defend Wright, continues to attend the church with his children, and uses racist language and stereotypes.

People. The Wright thing is over. I've said this before - If that's all they've got on Obama, it just shows what a superior candidate he is. Hillary just looks silly now.

O great - the White Supremacist wing of the Clinton Support Team.

As time moves on and the stupid Wright fiasco fades from memory...

Ha ha. Like the republicans are going to allow that to happen? You really believe that when you read...

Overall, 55% of voters told us that they were "disturbed" by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright videos...

I'll bet the pubbies haven't even noticed the issue.

Yeah. Wright.

Poll results show that Hillary Rambo Clinton's positive ratings have fallen by 8% in just the past two weeks.

Those poll results "shed light on impact" Sinbad is having on Hillary!!!!!!

I would really like to see the detail of the poll .. because it runs totally counter to the logical argument as Chuck Todd said himself. And oversampling of african-american just throws the whole poll into question.

MichaelWeaver,

Your prediction of Obama's political death are premature. The Clintons survived the Republican attack machine and Obama can too. All he needs is the spine for counterattack; the spine that eluded both John Kerry and Al Gore. From what I see, Obama is learning how to play the negative counterattack game very well. He needs more seasoning but the candidate has a good right jab and left hook. He's learning.

The Hillary Haters at this site will one day turn their guns on McCain. When that day comes--and it will come sooner than you would like--the fun part of this election season will commence. I hope you stick around; you'll get all sorts of attention now focused on Hillary supporters. And so will a decrepit 72 year old warmonger named John McCain.

This is not a story that is going to go away. Fox News has run stories on Obama and his pastor Jeremiah Wright continuously since the big flap erupted. Obama was forced to respond about it again today when he returned from vacation. He says that the infamous videos and speeches that were flashed across the Internet were taken out of context. That isn't going to satisfy most people, including Republicans. Fox News has found the same kind of blatant racist rhetoric from another pastor who is also a Senator from Chicago, and a pro-Obama superdelegate. Plus another explosive sermon from Pastor Wright, this one in writing, has surfaced from last year.

If Hillary's or McCain's pastor had been caught giving such blatantly anti-Amarican and racist sermons, the firestorm would be enormous, even though they are not as closely associated with their pastors and Obama is with his. It goes directly to his credibility as a uniter and someone able to help bridge America's racial divide. The story will not go away.

The ONLY significant finding in this poll

Clinton Approval - 39%

Too bad Bush is termed-out

THAT might be a horse race

Otto, Otto, Otto. I know you folks hope that if you call someone a racist often enough people will start believing you, facts (and your lack of them) be damned. And that probably works for your typical Fox News viewer. But it ain't flyin' here. Wipe the froth off your mouth and give it a rest.

Too bad Bush is termed-out

THAT might be a horse race

The only race where the write-in "None of the Above" wins

Before the Wright controversy, everyone (or at least Clinton) was saying Obama hadn't been tested, vetted. Could he handle the attacks that were going to be thrown against him inevitably in the general? There was a fear (or for Hillary, a hope) that something would come along that would really knock him down. Well something fierce came along, and did knock him down a bit, but he has pretty much bounced back. In a sense one could argue that the whole Wright thing has been positive in that it has proved he can meet adversity and emerge relatively unscathed. And likely what really made the difference was the speech that he wrote himself, delivered without a teleprompt