Hillary Highs

Hillary Clinton has two reasons to glow today: strong pundit reviews for her performance at Thursday's candidate forum on African-American issues, and new Gallup poll results showing big support for her among Democratic and Democratic-leaning black and Latino voters.

The reviews: "First Place . . . looked like she was in charge,"' wrote Roger Simon on politico.com. Clinton "spoke with greater confidence on race issues'' than did Barack Obama, wrote Mary Mitchell in the Chicago Sun-Times. "Clinton and [John] Edwards were very good, Obama more spotty but better as time went on," blogged Rick Klein of ABC's The Note.

The poll numbers: Clinton "easily has the highest favorable ratings among blacks and Hispanics," said Gallup in releasing its new results Friday. Some 84% of blacks and 63% of Hispanics in the survey had a favorable impression of Clinton.

Obama, by contrast, was viewed favorably by 68% of blacks and 33% of Hispanics (with more than half of all Hispanics saying they did not know enough about him to form an opinion).

There are even more interesting numbers -- and a possible signal to Obama -- in a separate Gallup poll released Wednesday.

With Al Gore in the mix, Obama had the support of 40% of black respondents, compared with 37% for Clinton (the gap lies within the poll's margin of error, which statistically makes them tied),  with 9% for Gore and 3% for Edwards.

But, note well: without Gore in the mix, Clinton was tops among the black respondents with 43%, compared to 42% for Obama and 6% for Edwards. Which means that some black voters ranked Obama no higher than their third choice.

The fight for African American voters -- a key part of the Democratic base -- continues.

--Scott Martelle

Comments

[Jonathan]

Well, duh. Hillary spoke with more "confidence" because she was willing to pander to minority voters - she doesn't say those things in front of White audiences. Obama gets a less "confidence" ranking because he doesn't pull out the race card and makes sure that everyone hears the same message and his authentic desires? Hillary's strategy might work better on voters who don't see through it - but like her husband's example, how will she be able to stand behind all the conflicting messages when she's in office? We know what Obama will stand for - because he has one clear set of policies that everyone gets to hear.

[Gracie Dijkhuyzen]

I will surely vote for the next Madame President of the great USA,Pres, Hillary Clinton,you are the best Maám.I salute and honor you.