Poll: Majority of Democrats prefer Obama

A majority of Democrats would like to see Barack Obama rather than Hillary Clinton win their party's presidential nomination, according to a national poll out Monday.

A new poll out Monday shows Democrats prefer Sen. Obama over Sen. Clinton to win the nomination.
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Fifty-two percent of registered Democrats questioned in a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey say the senator from Illinois is their choice for president, with 45 percent supporting Clinton.

The poll also suggests Democrats are more enthusiastic about an Obama victory (45 percent) than for a victory by the senator from New York (38 percent).

The two remaining major candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination are locked in a fierce battle for their party's presidential nomination, with Obama holding a slight lead both in delegates and the overall popular vote in the primaries and caucuses to date.

"The same patterns that we have been seeing in recent exit polls are holding true for Democrats nationwide as well. Obama's biggest support comes from men, younger voters and independents who lean Democratic," CNN polling director Keating Holland said. "Clinton does best among women, older voters and whites. One interesting difference, unlike the exit polls in many states, there is no difference in the national poll between college-educated Democrats and those who never attended college."

The nomination could hinge on two major matters: superdelegates and the possibility of do-over primaries for Florida and Michigan.

The two states broke national Democratic Party rules by moving up the dates of their primaries to January. None of the major Democratic candidates campaigned in the two states, and Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan.

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The national Democratic Party also banned Florida and Michigan's delegates from attending the party's national convention this summer. But with the fight for the nomination nearly deadlocked and the reality that winning both Florida and Michigan is crucial for the Democrats to take back the White House in November, there's now a movement toward letting both states vote again.  Watch more on the Florida, Michigan primaries »

Sixty-three percent of Democrats said the two states should hold new primaries, with 19 percent saying delegates from Florida and Michigan should be seated at the national convention based on the results of the January primaries, and 15 percent saying no delegates should be seated at all.

If Clinton and Obama finish the primary season with close to an equal number of pledged delegates, then superdelegates could decide which candidate wins the nomination.

There are nearly 800 superdelegates, mostly Democratic members of Congress, top elected state officials and leading members of the Democratic Party. Fifty percent of those polled say that it's a bad idea for the party to have superdelegates, with 42 percent supporting the system.

Since the party is not going to scrap the superdelegates, the big question is how they should base their vote for the nomination.

Democrats appear split on this question -- 49 percent say that superdelegates should base their votes on their view of who would be the best candidate; 46 percent say that superdelegates should base their votes on the results of the primaries and caucuses.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll was conducted by telephone March 14-16, with 1, 019 Americans questioned, including 463 registered voters who identify themselves as Democrats or independents who lean Democratic.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/ 17/poll.democrats/

The Clinton campaign staff member that was, since last year, responsible for making the candidate at least palatable to bloggers, Peter Daou - and we all can see what a great success that was! - sent out a private email today to people he hopes will be online surrogates for his candidate in the coming days:

I'm writing this to a group of bloggers. Some of you are Hillary supporters, some not, some neutral.

Nice timing, right after they self-marginalized by declaring a boycott (they called it a "strike") from the most highly read blog!
Anyway, Daou, who is not exactly going down in history as the next Whouley or Figueroa in political campaign lore, sent this personal message out to the faithful... who proceeded to post it on the Internets, more interested in proving that they're on his mailing list than in whether an internal email is helpful - or harmful - to their candidate.

Daou wrote...

And now the Chicago Tribune reports that Senator Obama is preparing a "full assault" on her "over ethics and transparency." To those who contend that Senator Obama is the clear frontrunner, I ask, to what end this "full assault" on Hillary?
So he wants the "Clinton bloggers" to fight back against any suggestion that their candidate's refusal to disclose four key categories of information - tax filings, White House schedules, funders and a list of budget "earmarks" that Senator Clinton tagged onto other legislation - regard matters that the American people have, or should have, a right to know about while considering a candidate for the US presidency.

Daou is particularly upset, according to his memo, with the use these words:
"Disingenuous"

"Too polarizing to win"

`Divisive'

"Untruthful"

"Dishonest"

`Calculating'

"Saying and doing whatever it takes to win"

"Attempting to deceive the American people"

"One of the most secretive politicians in America"

"Literally willing to do anything to win"

"Playing politics with war"

Oh, those words can't possibly describe a presidential candidate, can they?

And he concludes his missive:

We are all entitled to support and oppose whomever we choose, but I challenge my online friends to call this "full assault" on Hillary's character for what it is.

Some friends! They posted his private email to the Internet!

Bill Kristol's New York Times column about Barack Obama this morning contains a major, prejudicial error.
Paragraph five:

But Ronald Kessler, a journalist who has written about Wright's ministry, claims that Obama was in fact in the pews at Trinity last July 22. That's when Wright blamed the "arrogance" of the "United States of White America" for much of the world's suffering, especially the oppression of blacks. In any case, given the apparent frequency of such statements in Wright's preaching and their centrality to his worldview, the pretense that over all these years Obama had no idea that Wright was saying such things is hard to sustain.

The error is in trusting the source without checking.

The truth is that Obama did not attend church on July 22.

He was on his way to campaign in Miami.

(http://video.aol.com/video-detail/barack -obama-at-la-raza-convention-in-miami-fl -07-22-07/737349854) This was before he signed an agreement forbidding himself from campaigning in Florida.

Here is the original, false, Newsmax story:

Obama Attended Hate America Sermon.

One of his correspondents allegedly attended a service last summer where Rev. Wright preached on the "United States of White America." Kessler writes that Obama "nodded" his head while Wright preached along these lines:

Addressing the Iraq war, Wright thundered, "Young African-American men" were "dying for nothing." The "illegal war," he shouted, was "based on Bush's lies" and is being "fought for oil money."

Now, a simple Google search suggests that Obama spent most of the day in Miami. But a simple e-mail or telephone call to Obama's campaign might have cleared things up.

Another loss for the Wingnuts and their non-story.