Polls Show Obama Struggling to ‘Close the Deal’
Barack Obama speaks to reporters Friday in Indianapolis, Ind. (AP Photo)
More than a week after Barack Obama vowed to “close the deal” and wrap up the Democratic presidential nomination, he finds Hillary Clinton closing the gap and polls showing Americans still questioning his relationship with his controversial former pastor.
Clinton, still numerically outmatched when it comes to delegates won, is experiencing a surge in North Carolina and Indiana, which are holding primaries Tuesday and will set the trajectory for the campaign’s final weeks.
An average of polls on RealClearPolitics.com shows Obama with a 7-point lead in North Carolina; last month he was carrying the state in some surveys by more than 20 points. And Indiana, a state that was thought to be neck-and-neck, is trending toward Clinton. Averages show her up by 6 points in the state.
Clinton was endorsed Friday by The Indianapolis Star, which circulates in the state’s competitive capital suburbs. And a new Rasmussen Poll indicated that voters weren’t accepting Obama’s moves this week to denounce his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and shed the controversy surrounding him.
Fifty-eight percent of those polled said Obama denounced Wright out of political convenience, not outrage. The poll was conducted nationally Wednesday and Thursday night.
“This primary election on Tuesday is a game-changer. This is going to make a huge difference going forward,” Clinton said Friday in Kinston, N.C. “The entire country and probably the entire world is looking to see what North Carolina decides.”
North Carolina and Indiana offer 115 and 72 delegates, respectively, representing Obama’s last one-day chance to pull away in the delegate count and leave Clinton in the dust. The six contests that will remain after Tuesday each offer fewer than 60 delegates, and individually are unlikely to have a big impact on the dynamic of the race.
Asked about his apparent rut at a press conference in Indianapolis Friday, Obama tried to find the silver lining.
“We have had a rough couple of weeks; I won’t deny that,” he said. “And what’s remarkable is that, despite that, we are seeing terrific support all across Indiana and all across North Carolina. I have been incredibly encouraged over the last several days as we have campaigned. …
“This campaign has been tight throughout. But I am very confident that the American people are looking for the kind of truth-telling and serious policy-making that is going to have an impact on their lives. And as long as I am talking about the issues that matter to them, I think we have a terrific chance,” he said.
Obama’s nearly 10-point loss in Pennsylvania on April 22 made a set of victories Tuesday all the more important for him. He would like to shake Clinton and send a signal to uncommitted superdelegates that he’s the Democrat with the mandate from voters.
Clinton needs those superdelegates to overcome Obama’s total delegate lead, which as of Friday was 1,736 to 1,602.
In the past two months, Obama has whittled Clinton’s superdelegate lead by half. Clinton holds a 20-superdelegate lead, 268 to 248.
One notable superdelegate, former Democratic National Committee Chairman Joe Andrew, switched his support from Clinton to Obama on Thursday, despite having been named to the top party job by former President Bill Clinton.
“This has got to come to an end,” Andrew said from his hometown of Indianapolis. He said he planned to call all the other superdelegates he knows and encourage them to back Obama.
Obama also got the backing Friday of former DNC Chairman Paul Kirk Jr., who said in a statement: “Senator Obama is the one candidate who has and will continue to expand the electorate beyond the traditional Democratic party base and bring young and new and independent voters to the Democratic banner in November, an essential ingredient to a Democratic victory. …
“After the attention paid to the poisonous and polarizing diatribe of recent days, Senator Obama’s clear and compelling message, which appeals to our best instincts as Americans, is more important than ever.”
Clinton’s campaign brushed off Kirk’s endorsement as “old news.”
FOX News’ Aaron Bruns and Bonney Kapp and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Hillary , can’t win this unless she steals it …… wait she is a Clinton stealing is ok ….. anybody ever find out hwat they did with the painings they took from the white house ?
on another note …… DO THE MATH ! SHE CAN”T CATCH HIM IN THE PLEDGE DELEGATE COUNT DUE TO THE STUPID SYSTEM WE USE !
A silly story. It’s not like Hillary can just be “closed” in some kind of deal. Perhaps Fox can explain what exactly “closing the deal” is except pompous arrogant drivel.
“Only Malcolm X’s autobiography seemed to offer something different. His repeated acts of self-creation spoke to me. The blunt poetry of his words, his unadorned insistence on respect, promised a new and uncompromising order, martial in its discipline, forged through sheer force of will. All the other stuff, the talk of blue-eyed devils and apocalypse, was incidental to that program, I decided. Religious baggage that Malcolm himself seemed to have safely abandoned toward the end of his life. And yet, even as I imagine myself following Malcolm’s call, one line in the book stayed with me. He spoke of a wish he’d once had, the wish that the white blood that ran through him, there by an act of violence, might somehow be expunged. I knew that for Malcolm, that wish would never be incidental. I knew as well that traveling down the road to self-respect, my own white blood would never recede into mere abstraction. I was left to wonder what else I would be severing, if and when I left my mother and my grandparents at some uncharted border.” Source: Dreams from My Father, by Barack Obama, p. 80 Aug 1, 1996
I’m a republican. I’m not a socialist. I want nothing handed to me. I own my own busieness and struggle to get the bills paid on time. I still try to grow my business. I’m not making “I’m a victim statement”. I must do the right thing no matter how hard or easy. Any other way is weak.
Obama, Wright, Obama, Wright. OB’s common sense and good judgment is relavent to this election. I didn’t grow up with the guy, so I don’t really know him just like the rest of us. If OB is tinged with any of Wrights poison he’s a zero to me. Below zero. I beleive he’s tinged. I have to. 20 years is a long time to ignor. The truth is with his children. Of course it would never be appropriate- but wouldn’t it be interesting… to hear what the the values and principles they’ve grown up with are.
Hillary is Hillary. At the starting line- I was in the any1 but Hilllary camp. Now I find routing for the anti-christ vs the mangerian (sp)candidate.
Then we end up w McCain. Ugg. We need to have faith. All of us and hope that McCain does the right thing. I cannot imagine the collective intelligents of this country would want OB or HC.
whether you guys like it or not prophecy have to fullfil whatever is destined for you, you have to get , God will not let his children suffer any longer.
Obama 08-12.
Heed the call the Ark will soon close.
Hillary can’t “close the deal” either. The guy who lacks experience and started the campaign at a disadvantage (i.e., relatively unknown and -100 superdelegates to Hillary) has Clinton supporters jumping to his side; each has said they endorsed Obama because he runs a superior campaign based on a positive message rather than negative attacks. Hillary thought the process was going to be a coronation rather than a nomination. We’ll know soon enough.
We are for the U.S of A and Clinton. If Clinton doesn’t get nominated, we vote McCain because our country comes first, not the Democratic party that has gotten so lame.
NOBAMA period.
This whole fiasco is staged. Obama’s first denunciation apparently didn’t do the trick, even though Wright disappeared from the radar screen for a few weeks. The challenge was to get Obama to forcefully and fully throw the Rev. under the bus, but it would appear political if he wasn’t prevoked. Hence, the public speaking tour (with tacit approval from the campaign) the Rev. went on gave Obama the opening he needed to publicly flog and sever all association with him. Something he should have done 20 years ago. A brilliant politcal move! I can all but guarantee you that they are still buddies.
I am tired of two issues.
1. If you are an Obama why do you cry when the media produces negative news about him and then you claim that there’s a conspiring against Obama. The same is true for you Hilary followers. Stop wining because the news reports on what is popular to the public and produces ratings.
2. Stop complaining that you want to hear about the issues and move on from the Rev. Wright, the Michelle Obama “I have never been more proud of my country”, and the New Black Panthers posted on Obama’s campaign web site (then later removed) issues. This is all a reflection on who Obama is and who he associates with and what he has planned for the presidency of the United States of America. Obama has not answered any of these questions, but learned from Hilary how to side step them and focus on something else. Character is everything.
I have no idea how Obama is going to beat McCain unless Hilary is his Vise President. Obama is a cult and his followers are young liberal America and our black brother and sisters. Hilary has the rest of the gang.
I feel betrayed by Sen. Obama and the false hope he just talked about. Obama had a close relationship with a pastor who preached hate from the pulpit and he expects people to believe his lies? Obama lied to the American people and his false denounciation of his pastor is just a political move to keep his campaign alive. Obama is so fake and I am so turned off by his mixed messages, empty words and poor judgments. I’ll vote either for Hillary or McCain.