Today’s edition of quick hits.
* If the new Gallup daily tracking poll is right, the Democratic race hasn’t been this tight in weeks: “Gallup Poll Daily tracking shows a tightening of the national Democratic race, with Barack Obama now holding just a 3-percentage point advantage over Hillary Clinton, 47% to 44%.” A week ago, Obama’s lead was 10 points in the same poll.
* If the new Newsweek poll is right, however, Obama is pulling away: “Despite her campaign’s relentless attacks on Barack Obama’s qualifications and electability, Hillary Clinton has lost a lot of ground with Democratic voters nationwide going into Tuesday’s critical primary in Pennsylvania, a new NEWSWEEK poll shows. The survey of 1,209 registered voters found that Obama now leads Clinton by nearly 20 points, or 54 percent to 35 percent, among registered Democrats and those who lean Democratic nationwide. The previous Newsweek poll, conducted in March after Clinton’s big primary wins in Ohio and Texas, showed the two Democrats locked in a statistical tie (45 percent for Obama to 44 percent for Clinton). The new poll puts Obama ahead among women as well as men, and voters aged 60 and older as well as younger voters.”
* This is one unhappy electorate: “Nine in 10 Americans now give the economy a negative rating, with a majority saying it is in “poor” shape, the most to say so in more than 15 years. And the sense that things are bad has spread swiftly. The percentage who hold a negative view of the economy is up 33 points over the past year, and the percentage who rate the economy “poor” has increased 13 points in the past two months. That is the quickest 60-day decline since The Post and ABC started asking the question, in 1985. Views of the Iraq war have dipped as well. Now, more than six in 10 say that the conflict is not integral to the success of U.S. anti-terrorism efforts. That is the most people to reject what is one of the Bush administration’s central contentions and a core part of presumed GOP presidential nominee John McCain’s stand on the issue.”
* What a disaster: “Three weeks after U.S. troops were ordered into the sprawling Shiite Muslim slum of Sadr City to stop rockets from raining down on the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad’s Green Zone, they’re caught in crossfire between Shiite militiamen and the mostly Shiite Iraqi army. American soldiers who try to move around this urban area, even in the U.S. Army’s state-of-the-art Stryker armored vehicles, risk being ambushed. The soldiers in a platoon from the 25th Infantry Division quickly learned that holding a position puts them in the line of fire from both the Mahdi Army militia and the U.S.-backed Iraqi forces.”
* The rationale for not releasing Cindy McCain’s tax returns appears to be bogus.
* The “Colbert Bump” is looking more and more realistic all the time.
* Post of the Day: publius imagines what we might have heard if ABC News existed in 1858 to cover the original Lincoln-Douglas debates.
* In an administration of hacks, this clown might very well be the worst (at least since Alberto Gonzales left): “EPA chief Stephen Johnson has deployed a variety of methods to thwart Congressional scrutiny. There’s been old fashioned stonewalling. Testimonial gobbledygook. And of course fleeing the hemisphere.” He’s now claiming the mysterious “executive privilege to avoid embarrassment.”
* And speaking of Gonzales, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) isn’t thrilled with Attorney General Michael Mukasey unwillingness to compromise, but when compared to his predecessor, Specter said, “He’s a big improvement. It would be impossible not to be.”
* And speaking of Specter, he’s saying all the right things about telecom immunity: “I think retroactive immunity is exactly wrong. How can you ask for retroactive immunity in a context where you don’t even know what you’re immunizing?”
* I’m not at all sure if I fit in with the esteemed signatories, but I was nevertheless pleased to add my name to this letter: “In an open letter to ABC, journalists and media analysts condemn the network’s poor handling of the April 16 Democratic presidential debate.”
* Uh oh: “Smells like success: ‘Trying to stem the infiltration of militia fighters, American forces have begun to build a massive concrete wall that will partition Sadr City, the densely populated Shiite neighborhood in the Iraqi capital.’ Whatever happened to destroying the village in order to save it?”
* And finally, it’ll be interesting to see what happens with this: “Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) introduced a bill Thursday that would decriminalize the personal use of marijuana and legalize the use of medical marijuana in certain states.”
Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.