Democratic front runner Barack Obama is picking up super delegates one by one but his standing at the national polls has taken a sharp hit and the gap between him and rival Hillary Clinton is shrinking in the states heading for primaries on 6th May.
Sen. Obama on Friday picked up one more former Democratic National Chair and super delegate from Massachusetts Paul Kirk, who threw his weight behind the Illinois Senator to bring total number of his super delegates to 253 and his overall margin to securing the nomination to less than 300.
Only the day before another former Chair of the DNC Joe Andrew dumped Senator Clinton and went on to Senator Obama's side.
He urged others to do the same and close the delegate gap so Democrats can unify in time for the fall. Andrew headed the DNC under President Bill Clinton.
"We risk letting this moment slip through our fingers. We risk ceding the field to the Republicans and allowing the morally bankrupt Bush agenda to continue unabated if we do not unite behind a single candidate," Andrew said.
But what has come to hurt Obama is that he is dropping rapidly in national polls and in surveys in Indiana and North Carolina.
Clinton is now seen in several polls as the democratic candidate beating the presumptive Republican nominee Senator John McCain.
The double digit advantage that Senator Obama had in North Carolina and Indiana a few weeks ago now seems a thing of the past.
"A spate of new public polls out this week confirms what we have been arguing for some time: Hillary Clinton is the strongest candidate to beat John McCain in November," Clinton adviser Harold Ickes wrote in a campaign memo on Friday.
A daily tracking poll showed Clinton beating Obama nationally 46 per cent to 44 per cent, a swing of 10 points since Obama's pastor the Reverend Jeremiah Wright started talking to the press.
Other polls are also showing that Clinton would beat McCain in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, while Obama would narrowly lose in Florida and Ohio.
But the Clinton campaign eagerly pounced on the a news poll that showed the gap between Obama's favourable and unfavorable ratings had worsened in the last one month.
In April, Obama was viewed favourably by 62 per cent and unfavourably by 14 per cent.
The latest poll showed just a 37-point gap between the two ratings 57 per cent and 20 per cent.
But the immediate focus is on North Carolina where Obama was at one time leading by about 25 percentage points.
According to a tally posted by another poll, it is now an average of seven points.
In contrast Clinton who was trailing in Indiana at one time is now up by about four points according to some polls with some surveys showing that she is gaining in the Hoosier state.
Political analysts believe that the fashion in which Obama handled his fiery Pastor has cost him goodwill both among the blacks and among the whites.
The argument goes that after weeks of defending Reverend Wright and trying to make vague differentiations between him and the pastor and the church, Obama tried to put his foot down in a manner that came about too little and too late.
Source: By DDNEWS
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