If nothing else, Barack Obama’s speech yesterday has managed to take Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and most other news stories out of the public eye. The question now is, did the speech make any difference?

Will it have any impact on race relationships in the U.S.? My thought is, probably not. While Obama’s supporters are rating the speech from very good to one that should be an “American tract” I don’t see it ushering in anything new.

Will it have any impact on the Democrat primary? As Chris Muir points out in today’s Day by Day, the real target audience was the super delegates and the primary voters in Pennsylvania. Political necessity and damage control were the drivers behind the speech, much more than any desire to open up a national dialog. Caroline Glick puts it this way:

Obama’s denunciation of Wright’s bigotry amounts to too little too late. The time to stand up to him wasn’t now, when his association with Wright is sinking his hopes for the White House. The time to have stood up to Wright was when Obama was just another member of his church. (h/t: The Jawa Report)

The new poll question is: “Did Barack Obama’s Speech Change Any Minds?”