arack Obama 's speech on race has left the public divided on whether he has sufficiently put the issue behind him, a poll shows.
Even so, The Wall Street Journal-NBC News survey released Wednesday showed that Obama's remarks and the attention paid to comments by his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, so far have had little effect on his race with Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Videos of Wright sermons include one in which he shouts ''God damn America'' for its treatment of minorities. He also has said the U.S. government invented AIDS to destroy ''people of color'' and has suggested U.S. policies were to blame for the 9/11 attacks.
In a speech last week, Obama rejected Wright's divisive comments but stood by him otherwise and said it is time for the country to address its racial schism.
By 55 percent to 32 percent, more who had seen or heard about Obama's speech said they were satisfied with his explanation of his association with Wright than said they were dissatisfied.
Yet people familiar with Obama's remarks were about evenly split between those who said they felt reassured about his feelings on race, and those who said they still had doubts. Slightly more said Obama has said enough about race than said he needs to address it further.
In all instances, whites were more dubious than blacks about whether Obama had handled the issue successfully. Democrats were far more supportive than Republicans, while independents were likelier to be divided.
Blacks have solidly supported Obama in the Democratic presidential contest, while whites have tilted toward Clinton.
About seven in 10 said they had seen Obama's speech or heard about it.
The poll said Obama and Clinton are each supported by 45 percent of registered Democratic voters. That is little different from a Journal-NBC survey in early March when Clinton had 47 percent, Obama 43 percent.
In a CBS News poll last week, most voters deemed Obama's speech a success.
The Journal-NBC poll was conducted March 24-25 and included telephone interviews with 700 registered voters, with an oversampling of 177 black voters. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3.7 percentage points for all registered voters, 4.3 points for white voters and 7.4 points for black voters.
03/26/2008 08:09 PM
WASHINGTON (AP)
In this undated photo from Trinity United Church of Christ, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., left, poses with his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, March 10, 2005. Wright canceled plans Wednesday, March 26, 2008, to receive an award at a summit on black churches in Houston. He has also canceled plans to speak at three services in a Houston church Sunday.
(AP Photo/Trinity United Church of Christ)
arack Obama 's speech on race has left the public divided on whether he has sufficiently put the issue behind him, a poll shows.
