Gallup Daily Tracking: Obama’s 11% Lead Over Clinton Biggest All Year

The newest Gallup Daily Tracking poll, conducted when Senator Barack Obama’s comments about people in small-towns being bitter and clinging were widely covered in the media, now shows the Illinois Senator with his biggest lead yet over chief Democratic nomination rival Senator Hillary Clinton:

Barack Obama is maintaining his lead over Hillary Clinton among Democrats nationally in the latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking, with a 51% to 40% margin in the April 12-14 average.

The current 11 percentage point lead is the largest for Obama this year, and marks the ninth consecutive day in which Obama has led Clinton by a statistically significant margin. The current Gallup Poll Daily tracking average is based on interviewing conducted Saturday, Sunday and Monday — after the initial reports of Obama’s controversial remarks about “bitter” small-town residents began to be reported in the news media.

Gallup also notes the variables: tomorrow night there’s a big — perhaps pivotal — debate between Clinton and Obama. And Gallup also notes that there could be some “delayed impact” of Obama’s comments. Both “may affect Democratic voters’ perceptions in the days to come.”

But what about the general election? Clinton’s argument is that she’s now more electable than Obama:

In general election trial heat match ups, both Democratic candidates now have identical, and slight, 46% to 44% margins over presumptive Republican nominee John McCain.

So in terms of the polling, it’s a draw.

Meanwhile, the polls are being closely watched in Pennsylvania. But as Josh Marshall notes there is no sign yet that the controversy has caused any major shift in polling trends there.

But yet another issue lurks in the background: the issue of the impact of this latest controversy entailing Obama’s comments and the Clinton campaign’s aggressive use of the issue against Obama to brand him as an elitist. According to a post in The Huffington Post, Clinton’s campaign may be generating some backlash among superdelegates.

Political activist and organizer Robert Creamer, writing in the HP writes in part:

Clinton’s negative attacks on Obama have especially begun to backfire with Super Delegates. I’ve talked to a number of undecided Super Delegate Members of Congress who are furious at her willingness to attack the candidate who they consider almost certain to be the Democratic nominee.

Most think that Clinton has no more than a 10% chance of winning the nomination, so the odds are great that she is doing nothing now but legitimating the Republican narrative for the general election. The story line that Democrats are “elitists” who look down on middle class people is taken right out of Karl Rove’s playbook. It’s been used for decades to convince everyday Americans to re-elect Republicans that outsource their jobs, destroy their unions and lower their wages. Many Democratic Super Delegates are apoplectic that Clinton would give credibility to that Republican line of attack on their likely standard-bearer.

We’ve already seen examples of high profile Super Delegates (like Bill Richardson) who have gone with Obama partially because of Clinton’s negativism. We’ll likely see many more.

WHAT THIS MEANS: With polls not showing Obama in major trouble and indications that some Superdelegates may be getting upset, more than ever tomorrow’s debate will be pivotal:

–Clinton will seek to raise the issue and assertively make the case that Obama is an elitist and out of touch. Will she again lump him in with past Democratic nominees Senator John Kerry and former Vice President Al Gore as people who are out of touch? Presumably Clinton wants and needs Kerry and Gore to at least be neutral, rather than be irked and work against her.

–Obama will have to deal with this issue in a convincing and eloquent way. If the issue lingers or grows after the debate, his candidacy could be in serious trouble if not in terms of the nomination but the general election.

Clinton’s continuing dilemma: to get the nomination she has to raise Obama’s negatives and convince voters — and Superdelegates — that he’s a fatal investment since he is unelectable. But do so she will then raise her own negatives, since she started the campaign with much negative baggage and had begun to revamp her polarizing image.

Until she went negative…