The bleeding begins, and it doesn't look good for the "messiah"

The man of "hope" and "change" has certainly had a rough couple of weeks. The "messiah" image perpetrated by his handlers and the media for so long is now gone. Barack Obama is now human. The new FOX News poll shows that the bleeding has begun. The "Edmund Obama" is taking water and his campaign can't bail the water fast enough: (HT to Michael Goldfarb at The Weekly Standard)

Nearly half of Democrats (48 percent) think Hillary Clinton has a better chance of beating John McCain in November — 10 percentage points higher than the 38 percent who think Barack Obama can win, according to a FOX News poll released Wednesday. This represents a significant shift from March, when Democrats said Obama was the candidate more likely to beat McCain.

Democrats continue to favor Clinton as their party’s leader, albeit narrowly: 44 percent want her to win the nomination and 41 percent want Obama. Last month Clinton was preferred by 2 percentage points.

Further, for the second month in a row Clinton does slightly better than Obama in head-to-head matchups against the Republican senator. Clinton tops McCain by just 1 point (45 percent to 44 percent), down from a 3-point advantage last month. McCain edges Obama by a narrow 3-point margin (46 percent to 43 percent), up from a 1-point lead.

The leader in these matchups has shifted back and forth. In the last year, the biggest spread between Clinton and McCain was September 2007 when Clinton led him by 7 points. Obama held a 10-point lead over McCain last July.

Nearly a third of Clinton supporters — 32 percent — say they would vote for McCain instead of Obama (47 percent) if the general election were held today. Fewer Obama supporters — 21 percent — would defect and vote for McCain over Clinton if she were the nominee. ...

The ongoing controversy over Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, appears to have damaged how Americans view Obama. His favorable rating is now 47 percent, down 7 percentage points since February when 54 percent had a positive view of him. As may be expected, his unfavorable rating went up from 33 percent to 42 percent today. ...

Earlier this month a Democratic congressman said McCain was too old to be commander in chief. McCain is 71 and, if elected, he would be the oldest person to become president. The poll finds 22 percent of voters say McCain’s age is enough to discourage them from voting for him, up from 18 percent in April 2007. Even so, most voters say his age would not discourage their vote (77 percent), including 91 percent of Republicans.

Overall, more voters think McCain (60 percent) is honest and trustworthy than think Obama is (54 percent) and than think Clinton is (46 percent).

While majorities of Democrats think Clinton and Obama are honest and trustworthy, slightly more think Clinton is (69 percent) than Obama (66 percent).

Many more Democrats describe Clinton as "tough" (plus-38 points over Obama). They also are more likely to think "in touch with the American people" describes her (plus-10 points) as well as "arrogant" (plus-17 points).

[A note here: This is especially telling for two reasons. First on the issue of trustworthiness, when it comes to the Wright/Obama flap, many people thought he was being dishonest in his assessment of the pastor. "Twenty years at the same church" sticks in many minds when he kept saying he never heard the controversial statements. Second, the ten point jump when it comes to being in touch with Americans reflects the aftermath of the bitter comments by Obama in San Francisco.]

Obama has a double-digit edge on being better-described by the word "humble" (plus-18 points over Clinton); although some Democrats (16 percent) say neither candidate can be described this way. ...

Democrats are more likely to describe the way Clinton has been running her campaign as "tough and hard-hitting" (43 percent) than as "positive and upbeat" (26 percent) or as "negative and nasty" (19 percent). As for Obama, nearly half of Democrats think he has been running a "positive" campaign (45 percent) rather than a "hard-hitting" (25 percent) or "negative" one (14 percent).

But when will the campaign be over? More than six of 10 Americans (including 67 percent of Democrats) think the Democratic Primary has gone on too long. Some 29 percent of voters think it has been about the right amount of time and 7 percent say not long enough.

Now, let's be fair here. These polls mean precisely squat right now. All they can do is show political prognosticators and pundits what damage is done on a daily basis regarding the candidates. Hillary has had her ups and downs over past statements and photo ops. She dropped like a rock when she was caught putting plants at her rallies earlier this year. The Tuzla Dash story didn't reflect well on her, nor did her statements about her supposed accomplishments during the Clinton years when she released her records as First Lady and voters saw she was seriously embellishing her record.

But Obama's problems started when Jeremiah Wright came to light. Tony Rezko had a negligible affect on him, but that's because the majority of the media isn't focusing on his trial. Only Chicago media outlets are paying attention to the Rezko trial. We can attribute the media's blindness to the trial to the fact that they smell no blood in the water right now. (In fact the only political blood in that trial is focused on Governor Blagojevich, not Obama.) When William Ayers popped up on the radar, some of the media tried to play damage control for Obama, and they didn't succeed in their attempt. Earlier today, I pointed out that many of our Democrat friends have a problem with a man who appears to be a terrorist apologist. That will be something in the back of the minds of voters come Election Day. In short, what is hurting Obama are his associations with controversial figures in his life.

These numbers show that the Wright fiasco did hurt him, and people are starting to look to Hillary. She's getting the gains not only because she seemingly has less controversy in her life right now, but thanks to wins in Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania, she appears to be the "comeback kid" for the Democrats. They had all but counted her out until she started racking up wins in key states. (I'd be remiss if I didn't note that he recent surge has come on the backs of GOP voters switching parties to vote for her specifically to keep her alive in the primaries.)

Publius II