Barack Obama conceded to CNN yesterday that the Jeremiah Wright flap has taken a toll. "In some ways this, this controversy has actually shaken me up a little bit and gotten me back into remembering that the odds of me getting elected have always been lower than some of the other conventional candidates," the Illinois senator told Anderson Cooper

* As the Take Back America conference in Washington wraps up, it appears that progressive activists prefer Obama to Hillary Clinton by a wide margin. A Politico.com straw poll conducted at the event showed Obama ahead by a 3-to-1 margin, 72% to 16%. Moreover, 86% of conference participants said they would be satisfied with Obama as the nominee, while 48% said the same of Clinton.

* Yet another House GOP Republican incumbent is retiring: "GOP sources confirm that Rep. Tom Reynolds, a Western NY Congressman since 1999 and ex-NRCC chairman, will announce around noon tomorrow in Buffalo that he will not seek re-election this fall…. [T]he recent NRCC fraud scandal - some of which took place on his watch - has made his re-election effort that much more difficult in an already tough year."

* A new CBS/NYT poll shows Obama leading Clinton nationally, but his margin has shrunk considerably in the wake of the Wright flap. Obama is now up by just three, 46% to 43%. Nevertheless, the same poll shows Obama leading McCain nationally by five points, while Clinton leads McCain by two.

... (CarpetBaggerreport.com)