Poll Shows Obama Unhurt by Wright Flap

As for the damage this controversy did or didn't do to Obama, it's a mixed bag. Yes, Obama saw some of his numbers go down slightly among certain voting groups, most notably Republicans. But he's still much more competitive with independent voters when matched up against John McCain than Hillary Clinton is. And he still sports a net-positive personal rating of 49-32, which is down only slightly from two weeks ago, when it was 51-28.

Again, the biggest shift in those negative numbers were among Republicans. On one of the most critical questions we've been tracking for a few months, Obama showed resilience. When asked if the three presidential candidates could be successful in uniting the country if they were elected president, 60 percent of all voters believed Obama could be successful at doing this, 58 percent of all voters said McCain could unite the country while only 46 percent of voters said the same about Clinton. All three candidates saw dips on this issue, by the way. In January, 67 percent thought Obama could unite the country; 68 percent thought McCain could do it; and 55 percent said Clinton would be able to pull it off. The fact that all three dropped equally in the last three months is a sign that the campaign is becoming more ideological and partisan.

In the head-to-head matchups, there weren't huge shifts in the numbers, with Obama and Clinton dead even at 45 percent in the national Democratic primary matchup (a slight increase for Obama from early March). In the general-election matchups, Obama led McCain by 2 points, and McCain led Clinton by 2 points; all margin of error results and nothing to get too excited over.