Zogby: Obama tanks in North Carolina polling, loses 7 points in one day.

Obama: 46 (-4)
Clinton: 37 (+3)

Obama: 50
Clinton: 34

UTICA, New York - Democrat Hillary Clinton made gains in North Carolina yesterday, drawing within single digits of rival Barack Obama, while the two remain deadlocked in Indiana with just days before Tuesday's primary elections in those states, a pair of new Zogby daily tracking telephone polls show.

Obama leads in North Carolina by a 46% to 37% margin, with 17% either unsure or favoring someone else. In Indiana, Obama won 43% support, compared to 42% for Clinton, with the balance either favoring someone else or undecided.

The telephone surveys, conducted May 1-2, 2008, are the latest of Zogby's two-day daily tracking surveys that will continue until Tuesday. In North Carolina, 627 likely Democratic primary election voters were polled. The survey carries a margin of error of +/- 4.0 percentage points. In Indiana, 629 likely voting Democratic primary voters were surveyed. That poll also carries a margin of error of +/- 4.0 percentage points.

The telephone surveys were conducted using live operators working out of Zogby's call center in Upstate New York.

In North Carolina, Obama leads in all age groups with one exception - those age 70 and older, where the two are essentially tied. But Clinton closed the gap in some age groups, compared to yesterday's two-day tracking report.

Hillary Clinton, who jumped on the gas-tax holiday bandwagon posthaste, wants to pay for it with a windfall profits tax on oil companies. This makes her plan much more fiscally responsible. Not only does she balance the books, she turns a proposal that was unlikely to ever get passed into one that could not make it through the Senate if Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy both rose from the dead and hand-carried it there.

There are few things more satisfying than taking a strong stand in favor of something that is never going to happen. Free pander!

“I find it, frankly, a little offensive that people who don’t have to worry about filling up their gas tank or what they buy when they go to the supermarket think it’s somehow illegitimate to provide relief for ... millions and millions of Americans,” said Clinton the other day. She rammed the point home with a photo-op at a gasoline station while, as The Washington Post pointed out, her own fleet of S.U.V.’s ran their engines patiently right out of camera range.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/03/opinion/03collins.html?_r=2&ref=opinion&oref=slogin&oref=slogin