by Mark Silva

Now that Barack Obama claims a narrow majority of the Democratic Party's super-delegates, and with Obama poised to claim a majority of the pledged delegates in primaries on May 20, he's looking for a breakaway with the nation's Democrats.

In daily tracking of the sentiment of Democratic voters, Obama and Hillary Clinton have run a close contest for months. But neither has claimed more than 50 percent of the Democrats in the three-day averages of voters surveyed by the Gallup Poll.

With results in from the first three days of polling following Obama's big win in North Carolina and Clinton's squeaker in Indiana on Tuesday, Obama has gained another slight advantage in national daily tracking.

Yet, Gallup's Frank Newport notes, while "Obama's margin over Clinton is now larger than it has been over the last several days, he has yet to move into a significant or commanding lead, despite much discussion about the inevitability of his becoming the Democratic nominee.''

The standoff certainly has a lot to do with a lot of Democrats unwilling to give up on Clinton's candidacy as she struggles to keep a dwindling claim on the party's presidential nomination.

The results are based on a May 7-9 survey of 1,270 Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters, with a possible margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. For more, including a look at the contest from the start of January, see the Gallup Poll.

by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar

Although Democrats are tangled in a fractious primary contest, both Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama probably would win the White House against presumptive GOP nominee John McCain if the election were held now, according to a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll.

Arizona Sen. McCain remains competitive, but the poll identified one important vulnerability: Voters ranked him lowest among the three candidates on who could best handle the nation's economy -- by far the most pressing concern for the public irrespective of party, gender or income. Of the three main candidates, New York Sen. Clinton inspired the most confidence on the economy.

In a hypothetical matchup, the poll gave Illinois Sen. Obama 46% to McCain's 40%, with 9% undecided.

Clinton led McCain 47% to 38%, with 11% undecided. The nationwide poll, conducted May 1 through Thursday and released Friday, had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The results represent a shift from a Times/Bloomberg poll in February, when McCain led Clinton by 6 percentage points and Obama by 2, within the poll's margin of error.

"Although there is such infighting now between the two Democratic candidates, we are finding that both Democrats are beating McCain, and this could be attributed to the weakening of the economy," said Times Polling Director Susan Pinkus, who supervised the survey.

by Matthew Hay Brown

John McCain has taken advantage of the never-ending Democratic primary race to raise money and organize for the general election. But once Democrats unite behind a nominee, Sen. Mel Martinez says, "this is going to be a battle."

"I don't have any doubt that as soon as a nominee is named by the Democrats that that nominee is going to take a tremendous boost in the polls just because that's what happens," Martinez, the former general chairman of the Republican National Committee, tells America's Business with Mike Hambrick this week. "And then that's going to make it a very competitive race right into the fall."

The Florida Republican says "it's got to help that we have had some time for the McCain campaign to get its feet on the ground. He's raising money. Getting organization behind him. But it also remains a clear fact that the Democrats are going to unite and this is going to be a battle."

Republican former House Speaker Newt Gingrich warned this week of more Republican losses in November if the party doesn't follow his advice on charting "a bold new course of real change." Current Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she was confident of further Democratic gains.

Martinez says he likes the GOP's chances.

"With McCain at the top of the ticket I think it ... paints a very hopeful picture for what might happen in the down ballot races," he says. "I think in the Senate that we have a really good chance to hold our own or maybe keep any losses to one or two seats which I think would be really, really good in this environment. And I think in the House side we could make some gains actually. I don't think that we could count on taking control of either house this cycle but I think we have a really good shot to win the White House, make gains in the House, and hold our own in the Senate."

by Jim Tankersley

PORTLAND, Ore. - A subdued but resolute Sen. Hillary Clinton returned to her signature issue and a long-debated contrast with Democratic rival Barack Obama in a brief Oregon campaign stop today.

Clinton used a trip to Doernbecher Children's Hospital, in the hills on the west bank of the Willamette River, to re-stake her campaign as a crusade for health care for all Americans - and to reframe the Democratic race as a choice between a candidate who will achieve universal coverage and one who won't even try.

"If you don't start in favor of universal health care, you're never going to get there," Clinton said at the outdoor hospital courtyard event. "How can anybody run to be the Democratic nominee for president and not have a universal health care plan? This is a huge difference."

The New York senator called universal coverage a moral and economic imperative for both children and adults, emphasizing a distinction between her plan and Obama's that she has highlighted for months with mixed results.

Clinton's plan would require all Americans to have health insurance. Obama's plan would mandate coverage for all children but not for all adults. The campaigns have clashed over how many people Obama would leave uninsured, and whether Clinton's mandate would truly result in universal coverage.

The cast of NBC Television's "The West Wing" with former Vice President Al Gore. Clockwise from Gore are Bradley Whitford, John Spencer, Richard Schiff, Allison Janney, Martin Sheen. (Photo: NBC handout.)

by Maeve Reston

JERSEY CITY, N.J. -- It turns out that hobnobbing with liberal blogger Arianna Huffington and the cast of NBC's "The West Wing" on the left coast can be a risky proposition for a Republican with White House ambitions.

In Jersey City Friday morning, John McCain emphatically denied a report by Huffington on her blog that he confessed, during a Beverly Hills dinner party in 2001, that he had not voted for George W. Bush after his bitter defeat in 2000. But "West Wing" cast members -- who said in published reports they supported a Democratic ticket -- back up Huffington's story.

"It's nonsense," McCain said this morning when a reporter asked about the matter in the Liberty Science Center. "I voted, campaigned for, worked as hard as I could for President Bush's election in 2000 and 2004. I voted for President Bush. I said so at the time." And McCain is proud of what he saw as his help in getting Bush elected. "I know we're already in a silly season--but my record stands very clearly of campaigning all over this nation on behalf of the candidacy of President Bush," he said. "I think that some people believe that contributed to the fact that he won that election, and also in the 2004 election."

On Monday, Huffington posted an entry on her website asserting that McCain confessed during the 2001 party that he had not voted for the President. On the Huffington Post website, she explained her long silence by saying ...

... she "felt it was time to for me to tell what I knew," because the press was giving McCain "a pass."

(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

by Frank James

Richard Prince, who writes the always readable "Journal-isms" column for the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education website, must've been reading my mind.

He has a column today on something I noticed too, the mainstream media's relatively tame treatment of Sen. Hillary Clinton's comment to USA Today that she has stronger appeal than Sen. Barack Obama to "hard-working Americans, white Americans."

As Prince writes:

To many, it was a shocking statement -- equating "hard-working Americans" with "white Americans" and a naked attempt to cast herself as "the white candidate" in the race.

Even USA Today, to whom Clinton uttered the comment as a response to a general question about her campaign, broke the story under a bland Web site headline, "Clinton makes case for wide appeal."

It did seem like a better headline would have been "Clinton makes case for white appeal."

I agree; it was surprising that more wasn't made of this comment by the MSM. As soon as I read it, I was struck by how she seemed to be linking whites with hard work. Although she probably didn't mean to imply that non-whites aren't hard-working, that's the implication and it's not going to make any more friends for her among non-whites.

by James Oliphant

If any of the Washington bigfoots who attended the Friday morning's breakfast with the Clinton campaign's braintrust were expecting to hear some conciliatory language toward Barack Obama and the presidential race, they left disappointed.

Chief strategist Geoff Garin and communications director Howard Wolfson defiantly made the case that Hillary Clinton can win still the nomination by being the candidate with the best chance to win in November.

"Senator Clinton is in a better position to win the general election," Garin told a group of Washington journalists at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.

They dismissed any notion that the race was coming to the end of the line, despite the fact that only six contests remain on the Democratic primary slate. In their view, the primaries are just one step in the process. After they are completed, the superdelegates have their say and the dispute over the estranged delegates from Florida and Michigan must be settled.

They said Clinton would stay in past June 3 if Obama has not secured 2,209 delegates. (That's the figure the campaign uses because it counts the Florida and Michigan delegates.)

by Frank James

If you want to show that you have a subtle understanding of the world economy, when asked why gas prices are high you might want to offer an answer that mentions world oil demand, the declining dollar etc.

But those weren't among the reasons Sen. John McCain, the all-but-official Republican presidential lnominee, offered during his interview with Bill O'Reilly on Fox News Channel last night. It's the fault of the oil "cartel," meaning the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, he said.

"I think it's because of one fundamental problem. It's because you have a cartel that controls virtually all of the world's oil supply. And they, obviously, can set the price of oil to the highest level that can sustain it," McCain told O'Reilly.

Many problems with that answer. One, OPEC is responsible for about 40 percent of the world's oil exports, not "virtually all" the world's supply, as McCain said.

Also, as indicated earlier, economists place much of the blame for high oil prices on factors other than OPEC. There's demand in rapidly developing countries like China and India, for instance.

by Frank James

In his interview with Bill O'Reilly on FoxNews Channel last night, Sen. John McCain, right out the box, let loose the two charges he plans to hit Sen. Barack Obama hard with, 'inexperience' and 'judgment.'

It really wasn't anything different than what McCain, the all-but-official Republican presidential nominee, has said before about Obama.

It's significance is mainly in the fact that there's no message shift; it appears fixed. Polling has shown that Obama's relative inexperience in national politics is what most troubles many voters, particularly independents.

"What's his main weakness?" O'Reilly asked.

"Inexperience. I think inexperience and a lack of judgment and a record that shows that," McCain said.

His evidence? Obama's statement that he would sit down to talk with U.S. adversaries, including Mahmoud Ahmadenijad, Iran's president, and Obama's tax proposals, which, McCain charged, would raise taxes on 100 million Americans who pay capital-gains taxes.

A few minutes later, when he repeated what he thought Obama's main weaknesses to be, McCain through in "and vision" almost as an afterthought. He didn't have a chance to elaborate.

This last one may be the toughest for McCain to make stick. The "vision thing" is actually one of Obama's greatest strengths. He envisions a nation where his leadership, coupled grassroots pressure, gets Washington beyond the partisan logjam in order to address the country's numerous domestic and foreign problems. It may be idealistic. But it's certainly is a vision.

by Glenn Thrush and Craig Gordon

CHARLESTON, W.Va.-- There's only one problem with the idea of a Hillary Clinton- Barack Obama "Dream Team" ticket -- neither member of the team is ready to buy the dream.

With Clinton's White House hopes on the wane, chatter of a joint ticket with Obama on the top was making the rounds of Democratic power circles, the media and in the two campaigns themselves.

Obama -- who is said to have resisted the idea privately -- fueled the talk himself Thursday, telling CNN that Clinton is "an extraordinary candidate ... so obviously she'd be on anybody's short list to be a potential vice presidential candidate."

And onetime Bill Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos, now ABC's Sunday morning host, reported Thursday top Clinton aides were eager to discuss a peace treaty contingent on the joint ticket.

Clinton advisers deny the campaign is even considering the vice-presidential slot yet. Two people close to the former first lady were pessimistic, saying she had been emphatically against accepting a number-two slot when the topic had been raised in strategy sessions.

But analysts say neither candidate may have a choice in the matter, particularly if enough of the 260-plus unaligned superdelegates make a dual ticket a condition of their endorsement of Obama -- as a way of mending the racial and generational rifts in the party.

"If Senator Obama is the nominee, it will be a very serious option that he has to give serious consideration to," says Simon Rosenberg, a longtime Democratic party operative in Washington. "She's won a lot of delegates, she's raised a lot of money, she would bring a lot to the ticket."

See the rest of the report from Newsday:

by Frank James

Tom Edsall of the Huffington Post writes about the Obama campaign's efforts to cut a deal with the Clinton camp that would allow the former to help pay off the latter's campaign debt as a way of buying peace in the party i.e. getting her to end her campaign.

But there are problems. As Edsall reports:

The first is obvious: the deep and growing animosity of Obama supporters towards Clinton, whom they see as raising issues of race and 'elitism' that will hurt the Illinois Senator in November.

For many Obama backers, Penn, the former chief strategist for Clinton
and head of one of the biggest PR-lobbying conglomerates in the nation's
capital, is the quintessential Washington insider, capitalizing on political
connections to become a multi-millionaire.

If you run a presidential campaign that skewers Washington lobbyists, as Obama has, it would send a contradictory message to turn around and indirectly drop a cool $10 million or more into the lap of one of Washington's wealthiest lobbyists.

Then there's one more problem for Obama, as Edsall reports: a lot of his supporters viscerally hate the Clinton campaign and might revolt if he helps her pay down her debt.

by Mark Silva

Barack Obama talked about his lousy bowling, his on-again, off-again flag pins and neck-ties and what he's trying to prove with any of this -- nothing -- in that interview with NBC News that aired last night and exists in longer form at the network's Web-site.

With "due respect,'' NBC's Brian Williams told Obama, "I'm not guessing you've had a lot of bowling experience. ... But you end up with people talking about your bowling score. Gutter balls. Wearing a tie. Wearing a tie with farmers and... how have you dealt with that? .... Is there an operating theory that guides your life these days?''

"You know, my theory is not over think it,'' Obama replied. "Because I think the American people are smarter than that. The bowling's a wonderful example. Right?

"You go to a bowling alley 'cause you want to go meet with a bunch of folks. And folks are lined up and they're havin' a great time and we're talking. And....I'm signing autographs. And then some woman says, "Hey, why don't you bowl a couple frames?"

"And I said, "Sure, although I haven't bowled in 25 years." And I'm out there and I'm having a great time. You know? And suddenly, this becomes some big, sort of-- signifier of whether or not I'm in tune with blue-collar culture.

by Jim Tankersley

If the 2008 Democratic presidential race were a baseball season, Hillary Clinton would need the greatest comeback in major league history to clinch the nomination.

In a campaign that has been consumed by mathematical projections--and admittedly overrun by sports metaphors -- that's perhaps the easiest way to understand the odds facing the New York senator who entered the campaign looking like a 1927 Yankees-style lock to carry the party banner in November.

Clinton and rival Barack Obama have combined to secure about 88 percent of the available delegates in their nomination battle, the rough equivalent of playing 142 games in a 162-game baseball season. Obama is sitting in first place with a small but significant lead in delegates. But unlike Sen. John McCain of Arizona on the Republican side, Obama has not amassed enough delegates to capture his nomination.

At a similar point in a baseball playoff race, fans start obsessing over their team's "magic number," the games it must win--or its opponent must lose, or a combination of the two--to wrap up a postseason berth.

Obama needs to win about 36 percent of the remaining delegates, according to The Associated Press, to wrap the nomination. If the primaries were a baseball season and Obama were a team, there would be 20 games left to play, Obama would have a 14-game lead and his magic number would be seven.

No major league team has ever blown a lead that large, that late.

by James Oliphant

In a wide-ranging interview Thursday on CNN's Situation Room, Democratic front-runner Barack Obama outlined his vision for the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary.

"My first criteria is to make sure these are people are capable and competent," he told Wolf Blitzer. "Ninety-five percent of the time the law is so clear that it's just a matter of applying the law. I'm not somebody who believes in a bunch of judicial law-making."

He cited Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and David Souter as examples of the kinds of justices he would appoint to the high court, noting that Souter was appointed by President George H.W. Bush. (Obama, as a constitutional law professor, undoubtedly knows that Souter was a bit of a tabula rasa when chosen and has been a huge disappointment to conservatives ever since, but he didn't mention that.)

Sen. Barack Obama walks through the Dirksen Senate office building with his security detail at the U.S. Capitol. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

by Bill Gibson

Barack Obama promised a group of uncommitted superdelegates today that he would seat Florida's delegation at the Democratic National Convention this summer.

``He assured us that Florida delegates will be at the convention and they'll have their party hats on,'' reported South Florida Congressman Tim Mahoney, one of the uncommitted superdelegates.

This appears to be the first time Obama, the front-runner for the nomination, has made such a clear, definite promise. Hillary Clinton, his rival for the nomination, has made the pledge several times.

Clinton renewed her pitch to count the Florida and also the Michigan delegates, which would give her a boost because she won primaries in both states. In a letter to Obama today, she wrote: ``It is not enough to simply seat their representatives at the convention in Denver. The people of these great states, like the people who have voted and are to vote in other states, must have a voice in selecting our party's nominee.''

by Mark Silva

This posting may defy the sentiment behind it: People say the media have over-covered the story of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

"The latest round of news about Barack Obama and his former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright dominated campaign news coverage last week,'' the Pew Research Center finds its latest news-interest survey. "Wright's comments are by far the biggest political event of the campaign to date: Fully 62 percent say they have heard a lot or a little about Rev. Wright's recent speeches.''

And look at this: "Most Americans (59 percent) think that news organizations have overcovered the Wright controversy,'' Pew's Andy Kohut reports. "About two-thirds of Democrats (66 percent) and nearly as many independents (59 percent) say that news organizations have devoted too much coverage to Wright's recent speeches. But as many as half of Republicans agree that Wright's comments have received too much coverage.''

With all of that exposure of Obama, the Democrat who stands the strongest chance of claiming his party's presidential nomination now, and the most inciteful remarks of the fiery, longtime and now-retired pastor of Obama's church on the South Side of Chicago, comes a certain political price.

. "By the end of the week a quarter of all Americans, including 26 percent of Democrats, said their opinion of Obama had become less favorable in recent days;'' reports Kohut, president of the Pew Center. "Fewer than half as many (11 percent) said their opinion of the Illinois senator had become more favorable. ''

Those whose opinions had changed were asked about any specific incidents that prompted that. "Overall, a majority of those who said their opinion of Obama had become more negative volunteered a specific incident, with the Wright controversy mentioned most frequently (by 60 percent of those who cited a specific event).''

Of course, nearly four in ten Americans surveyed said they also had seen the photographs of Miley Cyrus that had stirred an uproar over the young skin of Hannah Montana. And that didn't do much for her image either -- among those who saw the bare-backed photo and more, 59 percent thought they were inappropriate.

Read more, here, from the weekly News Interest Index, a project of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and The Project for Excellence in Journalism.