Spin Cycle

A slew of polls, and the top lines should buoy Obama a little:

Nationally, he's trailing Hillary in a Fox poll, tied in Gallup's three-day tracking poll, but shows healthy leads in two released last night -- up 46-38 in a CBS/NYT poll, and up 46-43 in a WSJ/NBC poll.

Throughout, however, there are signs of damage: Fewer voters consider him the odds-on favorite to get the nomination, his unfavorability is up (still not as bad as Hillary), he's much weaker among independents.

In North Carolina, Rev. Wright is playing big, and a new poll has his lead down to 7, while another has Clinton taking over the lead. In Indiana, the last two polls have Clinton up by 8 and 9.

The brightest spot for Obama is superdelegates, where he continues to collect a few more than Hillary. Increasingly, however, that seems to be driven by a desire to end the fight -- not by a belief that Obama is a stronger candidate. Bad results in NC and Indiana will trump that trend -- and at some point, Clinton will be the one making the argument that the party needs to unify around her.