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Posted
Tuesday, March 18, 2008 10:22 AM
| By
Christopher Beam
Just a thought as we’re waiting for Obama to deliver his much-anticipated
speech on race.
NBC's First Read says
that this speech is make-or-break for Obama: “If Obama can't hit a homerun on
this speech today, then he won’t be president.” Sorry, what?? It’s one thing to say this will be a big speech. It’s
another to say his candidacy hinges on it. He has an insurmountable pledged
delegate lead, and the odds of Clinton
overtaking him with superdelegates are slipping.
Plus, Obama still
beats McCain in head-to-head match-ups. The idea that Obama could suddenly sabotage
his own candidacy with a single speech like this neglects the fact that he’s,
er, winning.
First Read also concludes that the Wright controversy has
“hurt Obama – so far.” The evidence: a new poll shows Clinton beating McCain by more points (five)
than Obama does (two). Before the Wright flap dominated news cycles, Obama had
a wider lead over McCain than Clinton
did. But to chalk that switch up to Wright alone seems questionable, especially
since we’re talking about a wide margin
of error:
Gallup
surveyed 685 "likely" voters across the nation from Friday through
Sunday. It says the margin of error on each result is +/- 4 percentage points.
That means neither Clinton nor Obama's lead in the new poll is "outside"
that margin. Clinton's
support could be as low as 47% (because 51-4=47) and McCain's could be as high
as 50% (because 46+4=50).
Something to keep in mind during post-speech analysis, too.
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