I'm sure there will be more polling, but this is pretty big news if it holds up.
A new national poll released Friday showed voters who heard or read about Barack Obama’s speech on his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and race relations, broadly approved of it.
Seven in 10 said he did a good job talking about race relations and as many said he did a good job explaining his relationship with Reverend Wright, according to a CBS News poll conducted Thursday.
Full text and additional key elements after the jump.
A new national poll released Friday showed voters who heard or read about Barack Obama’s speech on his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and race relations, broadly approved of it.
Seven in 10 said he did a good job talking about race relations and as many said he did a good job explaining his relationship with Reverend Wright, according to a CBS News poll conducted Thursday.
More than six in 10, moreover, said they mostly agreed with what he said about race relations in this country, including a broad majority of Democrats and independents, but fewer — four in 10 — Republicans.
How the issue will ultimately affect Mr. Obama’s presidential aspirations remains to be seen. But seven in 10 voters nationwide who have followed the issue said it will make no difference in their vote decision, while the rest evenly divided over whether they will be more or less likely to vote for him.
Still, the poll found that public perceptions that Mr. Obama would be able to unite the country as president have fallen. Just over half of registered voters now say he would be that kind of president, down from two-thirds who said so a month ago.
The CBS News poll was conducted March 20 among 542 registered voters who were initially interviewed in a March 15-18 CBS News poll. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
I bolded the most important part...70% said that the Wright controversy will make NO difference to them...and the remaining 30% split evenly. In other words, no long term political damage.
Link:
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/...