Gallup Poll: Obama Retakes Big Lead Over Clinton Amid Signs Wright Race Speech Worked

A new Gallup daily tracking poll shows Democratic Senator Barack Obama has now taken an 8 point lead over Senator Hillary Clinton in their party’s bitter presidential nomination battle — a sign that Obama’s speech on race prompted by his fiery pastor’s comments worked and that Clinton’s inaccurate Bosnia assertions short-circuited her momentum:

Today’s Gallup Poll Daily tracking update finds Barack Obama with an eight percentage point advantage over Hillary Clinton (50% to 42%), this gives him a statistically significant advantage for the first time since before the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy.

The Gallup graph is quite illustrative:

Not only does Obama lead in this poll, but it’s one of his biggest leads yet:

Obama’s current 8-point advantage ties his largest lead of the Gallup Poll Daily tracking program, along with a 50% to 42% showing in Feb. 28-March 1 polling. Obama clearly has weathered the Wright storm, while the dark clouds have shifted to Clinton over whether she has exaggerated her foreign policy credentials. This week she has had to defend her repeated claim that she came under sniper fire while visiting Bosnia as first lady, which news video clearly disputed.

The bad news for both Democrats, though, is that while they have been battling each other the GOP’s virtually certain nominee Senator John McCain has been doing well in the polls:

Right now, the races remain close, but Republican John McCain has an edge over both Clinton and Obama in registered voters’ general election preferences. In the new Gallup Poll Daily tracking update, McCain has a statistically significant 4-point lead over Clinton (48% to 44%) and a smaller 2-point advantage over Obama (46% to 44%).

If you look at this poll (which is a snapshot and can and most likely will be outdated in a day or so) you can draw these conclusions:

(1) Obama’s speech worked, even though he predictably has been lambasted by conservative talk show hosts, Republican partisans, and some (not all) staunch Clinton backers. The issue will linger and he has to figure out how to deal with it in the general election, if he gets the nomination.

(2) Clinton’s Bosnia claims hurt her badly. Just saying she is human and/or misspoke has not stemmed the political bleeding. Also: other polls indicate her campaign’s negative campaigning against Obama — designed to raise his negatives — has boomeranged and eroded her support. Remember that when she started to run Clinton was perceived as a highly polarizing, almost brittle figure, but her debate, stump and Internet appearances enhanced her image. She now seems back nearly to square one.

(3) The numbers do not indicate that Obama is less electable against McCain than Clinton. And, again the only ways that will change is massive Obama wipe-outs in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, something new that destroys his candidacy, or stepped-up negative Clinton camp campaigning against him. The latter could also make Hillary Clinton herself unelectable if her own negatives keep increasing. READ THIS.