CNN has just released their new "poll of polls" summary, the first since last Friday.  The news?  Obama by four...up from Obama by three last time.

Good topline summary:

After several days of tough new ads from McCain’s campaign, the presumptive Democratic nominee holds a 4-point advantage over the presumptive Republican nominee in CNN's average of national polls, up slightly from the 3-point margin he held on Friday.

They couldn't even wait for tomorrow's paper.  Key Graph from the website:

It also — and we wish this were coincidence, but we doubt it — conjurs up another loaded racial image.

The phrase dealing the race card "from the bottom of the deck" entered the national lexicon during the O.J. Simpson saga. Robert Shapiro, one of Mr. Simpson’s lawyers, famously declared of himself, Johnny Cochran and the rest of the Simpson defense team, "Not only did we play the race card, we dealt it from the bottom of the deck."

Here's a classic example of Media Manufacture: a story that is reported wrong (i.e. the incident never happened), gets picked up by various op-ed blowhards, and becomes "fact".

Yesterday, the pool reporter following Obama reported the following:

He left to check in on other classes, thanking teachers and students. He then came back to the room where the children were drawing pictures. Stooping over a table, he autographed a number of drawings. The children were delighted; one girl held her picture to her cheek after Obama signed it.

As he left, a boy tried to give him a fist bump. Obama said no.
"If I start that ..." his voice trailed off.

http://thepage.time.com/...

Oh no! Obama doesn't want to fist-bump a little boy!  You know where this is going...

If you needed any more evidence that the MSM is in desperate need of a close race, I present CNN's writeup of their most recent poll.  Check out this spin:

New CNN Poll: Obama, McCain in a statistical dead heat

With the dust having finally settled after the prolonged Democratic presidential primary, a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll shows Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama locked in a statistical dead heat in the race for the White House.

With just over four months remaining until voters weigh in at the polls, the new survey out Tuesday indicates Obama holds a narrow 5-point advantage among registered voters nationwide over the Arizona senator, 50 percent to 45 percent. That represents little change from a similar poll one month ago, when the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee held a 46-43 percent edge over McCain.

No spin there!  More after the break.

This is a welcome editorial in the Washington Post tomorrow.  They don't mince words.

Key graph:

We have to agree with Sen. Barack Obama, the only candidate who has refused to play this game. "It's not an idea to get you through the summer," he said. "It's an idea to get them through an election." His opponents no doubt hope that Mr. Obama's stand will prove to be political suicide. We think it qualifies as political courage.

I thought that the Gas Tax issue allowed Obama to pivot back to his strength: running against the Washington insiders who only offer the same old BS.  Perhaps it's starting to work.

Some excerpts from the editorial (and link) after the jump.

Don't know what to make of this.  I suppose this happens under the radar often, but it's still disappointing.  Update:  This is from Lufkin, Texas.

A political sign endorsing Presidential candidate Barack Obama was set on fire in the front yard of a residence sometime late Wednesday night in the 100 block of Tower Lane, according to Lufkin Police Department spokesman Lt. David Young. The owner of the home, Will Stambaugh, found the remnants of the political statement when he went to retrieve the newspaper the next morning.

"Whoever they were, they just torched the thing right in front of my house." Stambaugh said. "I called the police when I found it the next morning and they came out and noted it. I don't know if it was directed towards me or Obama."

No other signs of vandalism were found at the scene.

http://www.lufkindailynews.com/...

Good news from an AP poll just out...Obama up 10 nationally.  But the write-up is worth a read.

THE RACE: The presidential race for Democrats nationally

_

THE NUMBERS

Barack Obama, 49 percent

Hillary Rodham Clinton, 39 percent

You knew it was coming.  It's shaping up to be a bad media day for Hillary Clinton, what with the "sniper" story video going big time.  So...time for a little manufactured controversy.  So much for "not touching" the Rev. Wright story.

I'm sure there will be more polling, but this is pretty big news if it holds up.

A new national poll released Friday showed voters who heard or read about Barack Obama’s speech on his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and race relations, broadly approved of it.

Seven in 10 said he did a good job talking about race relations and as many said he did a good job explaining his relationship with Reverend Wright, according to a CBS News poll conducted Thursday.

Full text and additional key elements after the jump.

The backlash is in full force now.  Clinton thought she could get away with sly comments that McCain and she have met the "Commander-in-Chief" threshold and Obama hasn't...without triggering a pushback from what passes for the Democratic Party leadership these days.

Wrong.

The Clinton camp seemed to be getting decent mileage out of the "Obama plagiarism" controversy.  All over the blogs, hitting the Cable nets, and so on...all the classic media storm elements.  It's a pretty clean way to push the "Obama's just another politician" meme, which the campaign has been trying to do for some time.  So, far, some success.

And then, as the Clinton camp is wont to do, they pushed too hard.

Yes, I know, not supposed to post simple diaries...but this is interesting.  Kucinich is apparently making the "deal" with Obama this year, much as he did in 2004 with Edwards.

This is definitely significant, as Kucinich's supporters may very well have added several points to Edwards in 2004 after the second-choice recalculation.

The plot thickens...

(full text after jump)

As you may have noticed, we're getting deep into the Presidential primary season.  Candidates are working hard and voters are starting to pay close attention and decide which candidate will make the best President.

Many voters have different criteria for what they are looking for in a candidate, but folks find out about and get passionate about their choice.  More casual voters aren't as invested, but they look for a candidate who's going to work on the issues important to them, whether it's the economy, the war in Iraq, or something else.  They may not make a decision for a while, and are certainly influenced by the horserace coverage, but eventually they'll pick someone they like and trust.

I can't believe it.  Someone must have slipped something in my coffee this morning.  I actually just read a "fact checking" article on the AP, by Nedra Pickler, of all people, and it's...actually good journalism!  What is the world coming to?

I haven't seen this mentioned in the last few days, so I thought I'd break the exciting news to everyone.  Apologies if it's been diaried...I couldn't help myself.  I just love disecting polling trends too much!

Mark Penn has an inside-baseball polling memo out today responding to the Obama campaign's memo last week on the horserace positioning.  The David Plouffe memo from Obama basically said that Obama's in good shape, don't worry about the polls yet.

Mark Penn's response?  Hillary is Inevitable.  And I've got 40 million polls to prove it.  Logical, I suppose.  But is this really a great argument?

Seems like this idea is working pretty well so far.  Although, in fairness, I'm not sure I want it to work TOO well.  It'll reduce my odds of winning!

I'm not sure how the numbers match up with other fundraising drives...but I do know that Obama had 50,000 online contributors in Q1, so this seems pretty substantial.

ARG is out with some new early state polls...and they're good news for Clinton.  And bad news for Obama (less so for Edwards).  Count me in as someone who doesn't buy some of these numbers...but who knows.

Clinton continues to look like the clear front-runner...

UPDATED:  Not so big lead in SC for Clinton.  Sorry, I took the numbers off of Political Wire without double checking.