Wright flap’s toll on polls

OPINION:

Is the bottom falling out for Barack Obama? It’s too early to say, but there are some disturbing signs.

On the positive side, superdelegates still are breaking his way. Rep. Baron Hill, whose southern Indiana district almost certainly will vote for Hillary Clinton, came out for Mr. Obama. So did fellow Hoosier Joe Andrew, who previously endorsed Mrs. Clinton and who was named Democratic national chairman by Bill Clinton in the 1990s. (James Carville may have another name for him.) Mr. Obama is still well ahead among delegates chosen in primaries and caucuses, and he is not very far behind in superdelegates, either.

But what about the voters? Here there are some ominous signs. The latest Fox News poll, conducted after the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s appearance at the National Press Club, showed Mr. Obama’s favorable/unfavorables at 63 percent to 27 percent among Democrats, compared to Hillary Clinton’s 73 percent to 22 percent. Suddenly she’s not the only one with high negatives. And 36 percent of Democrats say they would be disinclined to vote for Mr. Obama because of his longtime relationship with his former pastor.

There’s more bad news in the Pew Research Center poll of Democrats. Mr. Obama’s national lead among Democrats is down from 49 percent to 39 percent to a statistically insignificant 47 percent to 45 percent.

These results are not outliers. The Rasmussen tracking poll showed Mr. Obama leading Mrs. Clinton 49 to 41 percent before Mr. Wright spoke to the National Press Club. Afterward the numbers were 46 to 44 percent in favor of Mrs. Clinton.

The Gallup Poll had Mr. Obama leading Mrs. Clinton 50 percent to 41 percent the night before the Pennsylvania primary. The results reported May 1 were Mrs. Clinton 49 percent, Mr. Obama 45 percent.

Mr. Obama’s standing as a general election candidate also seems to have taken a hit. Gallup showed him tied with John McCain 45 percent to 45 percent before the Wright appearance and trailing 47 percent to 43 percent afterward; at the same time, it showed Hillary Clinton tied with Mr. McCain 46 percent to 46 percent. Similarly, Rasmussen has Mr. McCain now ahead of Mr. Obama 46 percent to 43 percent and Mr. McCain tied with Mrs. Clinton 44 percent to 44 percent.

All the numbers in this deluge tell the same story. Not just liberal but also many conservative commentators said Mr. Obama’s speech on race March 18, in response to ABC News’ broadcasting of excerpts from Mr. Wright’s sermons, had solved any problems he had with voters, or at least with Democratic voters. And it was hard to argue with that conclusion, at least as to Democrats. Mr. Obama’s loss in Pennsylvania April 22, in line with expectations, didn’t necessarily contradict that. The response to Mr. Obama’s repudiation April 29, in response to Mr. Wright’s remarks April 28, is clearly different.

One reason is that Mr. Obama now has taken two diametrically opposed stands on the minister whose church he attended for 20 years, who married him and his wife and baptized their children, whose sermon inspired the title of his 2006 book, “The Audacity of Hope.” On March 18, his response was: No, I cannot renounce my pastor. On April 29, his response was: Yes, I can.

Another and more important reason is that Mr. Obama’s long association with a minister who says that the federal government manufactured the AIDS virus to kill black people, who likens American soldiers to terrorists, who celebrates Louis Farrakhan as a great man — that long association tends to undermine the central theme of Mr. Obama’s candidacy. Mr. Obama has presented himself since his 2004 Democratic National Convention speech as a leader who can unite America across political and racial divides. He presented himself to American voters, most of whom, I believe, think it would be a very good thing if we elected a black president. (I personally feel that way.)

“In the blue states,” Mr. Obama told the convention in Boston and the nation watching on TV, “we worship an awesome God.” Now it turns out that the God worshipped in the Rev. Wright’s church was “awesome” in ways we didn’t expect.

The appeals of Mr. Obama and Hillary Clinton will be tested in the May 6 primaries in North Carolina and Indiana, the nation’s 10th- and 15th-most populous states. The Real Clear Politics average of recent polling shows Mr. Obama’s share of the two-candidate vote in North Carolina at 54 percent, down from 59 percent in April, and Mrs. Clinton with 53 percent of the two-candidate vote in Indiana, where she trailed not long ago.

A few pundits still are saying Mr. Obama’s choice of pastor is a distraction, an irrelevancy. But some voters, perhaps in the belief that a president’s judgment and values have important consequences, don’t agree.

Michael Barone is a nationally syndicated columnist.