Night Caps

A couple of previous scavenges turned out to be the stories of the day, apart from the obvious (Richardson's endorsement, and possible fatal blow to Billary.) One was the Politco story about Hillary's 10% chance, which shaped the talk on the cable shows all day, and the other was the campaign financial reports for last month that showed Obama with $30 million left at the end of the month, but Clinton with just $3 million-- 10% again. (So that's MY number for the day, Chris Matthews, who WRONGLY said today that Obama had been in the pews when Rev. Wright gave his "goddamn America" sermon.)

Hillary took some other hits Friday, to her credibility. Her increasingly dramatic description of her arrival in Kosovo as First Lady (ducking the sniper fire!) is judged a "whopper" by the Washington Post Fact Checker (gaining the uncoveted max Four Pinocchio's.) The evidence against her account comes from others who were there (including reporters), plus audio and even video. Meanwhile, the ABC fact check desk finds her claim that she was really against NAFTA as F.L. increasingly incredible, thanks to appointment logs and recollections of others in position to know.

(Bill Richardson told a TV interviewer that he'd called Hillary to tell her he was endorsing Obama, and there were some "heated words." Hillary stayed out of the public eye Friday. Richardson's endorsement had lots of people talking about him as a possible v.p. for Obama. Though his experience and passion as well as his identity as a southwestern governor and Latino both qualify him and provide some political attraction, his interviews already suggest that he's prone to gaffes and going off-message that could be a problem in the general election campaign. )

On the question on everyone's minds for awhile, the impact of the Rev. Wright videobombing and Obama's speech on race, the poll evidence was mixed, due perhaps to how questions were asked. First was Rasmussen: The Rasmussen poll showed that 84% of likely voters saw at least some of the speech, with 51% of that group saying it was good or excellent, 26% saying it was fair, and 21% rating it poor. On the other hand, 56% say they remain somewhat or very "concerned" about his relationship with Wright.

TMP compared this to an earlier Fox poll with a different question: Fox also asked respondents whether they had doubts about Obama because of his association with Wright. The results: 35% Yes, 54% No, with the numbers standing at 26%-66% for Democrats, 27%-61% among independents, and 56%-33% with Republicans. In general, By a 57%-24% margin, registered votes do not believe that Obama shares Wright's controversial views. The internals show only 17% of Democrats saying Obama shares Wright's ideas, along with 20% of independents and 36% of Republicans.

But the last poll released Friday seemed the most definitive, from CBS: A new CBS poll shows Barack Obama receiving high marks for his speech on race relations. The poll shows 69% of registered voters saying Obama did a good job of addressing race relations, and 71% said he did a good job explaining his relationship with Jeremiah Wright. The poll also showed 63% saying they agree with Obama on race relations.
Among voters who have followed the Wright controversy, only 14% said they were less likely to vote for Obama as a result — with an equal 14% saying they were more likely to vote for him, and 70% saying it would make no difference.

Within those numbers are individual stories, which are starting to come out, like this one at Kos. (There were also a flurry of excited diaries from people who had met Obama as he campaigned in Oregon.)

And to put a cap on this whole extraordinary week, there were the videos and subsequent follow-up stories that put some of those Rev. Wright moments in the context of what else he was saying in the particular sermon, and the bizarre morning show on Fox, in which the usually predictable rant on something Obama said taken out of context got an on-air rebuke from one of Fox's senior reporters (Chris Wallace), and caused a co-host to walk off the set in frustration at the continuing relentless distortion. What could possibly happen next?

And thanks to two of my readers for saying hello in the comments. Those are two of the names I knew, which leaves maybe one more. Hey, BT aka Lemmuel Dash, how ya doin?