March 26, 2008
Obama Bounces Back - Speech Seemed to Help
by Joe Garofoli
The San Francisco Chronicle
The first major national poll taken since Sen. Barack Obama's speech on race in America shows Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in a virtual tie, reversing Obama's slide in the polls after the wide airing of controversial remarks made by his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
"It's hard to disentangle the impact of (Obama's) speech," Gallup Poll Editor in Chief Frank Newport said Tuesday. The latest Gallup Poll, taken March 22, showed the Illinois senator with 47 percent of the national Democratic vote and Clinton with 46. On March 18 - the day of Obama's speech - after clips of Wright's sermons had permeated the media, Clinton held a seven-point lead over Obama.
Said Newport: "All we know is that he made a speech, and a couple of days later, he was tied with Hillary when a couple days before he was down seven points. It's not insignificant."
Obama's much-praised speech called on Americans to break the racial stalemate that has long divided the country, frankly addressing the prejudices and fears of both blacks and whites. But critics said Obama should have criticized his pastor and mentor more forcefully instead of saying he could no more disown Wright for his remarks than he could his own white grandmother.
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