Obama's Notices

By Kevin Drum

(Political Animal)  OBAMA'S NOTICES....CBS News has an early poll showing that Barack Obama's speech about race and Jeremiah Wright was generally well received:

Sixty-nine percent of voters who have heard or read about Obama's speech say he did a good job addressing the issue of race relations, and 63 percent of voters following the events say they agree with Obama's views on race relations. Seventy-one percent say he did a good job explaining his relationship with Wright.

When registered voters were asked if Obama would unite the country, however, 52 percent said yes — down from 67 percent last month.

This is probably about as good as it could have been. There was never any chance of persuading the 30% of hardcore Fox viewers, after all, and this poll suggests that he got virtually unanimous support among everyone else.

As for fewer people thinking Obama can unite the country — well, that's just facing up to reality. He's a talented politician, but he's not the second coming. We Americans just disagree about a lot of stuff, and that's not likely to change anytime soon.