Maybe Bill could take a break

There was a new poll last week from the Wall Street Journal/NBC News showing support for Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama has remaining tight nationally, with Obama edging ahead within the margin of error. There’s good news in the poll for Republicans -- voters seem to like John McCain more than they like the Republican Party in general, suggesting a tighter race than Democrats had foreseen.

But a more interesting nugget is buried deep in the data. It seems that the more voters see of Bill Clinton, the less they like him.

The poll shows a significant shift in his approval rating from a year ago.

In March 2007, some 48% had a positive view of the ex-president, and 35% had a negative view. Now his negatives slightly outpace his positives, 45% to 42%.

Over the same time, Hillary Clinton’s positive number rose to 45% from 39% while her negative remained almost static, increasing to 44% from 43%.

As for Obama, the more voters saw of him -- or, at least the more they learned about him -- the more they liked him.

In March 2007 his positive number was 37%, and his negative 17%. Now Obama’s positive-negative numbers are 51% to 28%. In the earlier survey, 26% said they were neutral about him, and 20% said they didn’t know.

Now, 18% say they are neutral and 3% undecided.

Together again

Thursday was a special day on Capitol Hill. For the first time in nearly five months, all three top presidential candidates were present and voting.

Imagine: senators who want to be president actually being senators for a while.

John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the Democrats still battling for the nomination, scrapped their campaign schedules and returned to work for a long day -- and night -- of budget votes.

The last time the three were all together for votes was on Oct. 24, when they arrived in the Senate chamber to decide on the controversial nomination of Leslie Southwick to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in Louisiana. McCain voted yes, and Clinton and Obama voted no. Southwick won, 59-38.

Hazard? What hazard?

Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, attempting to refute rival Hillary Clinton’s claim that her time as first lady turned her into a veteran foreign-policy hand, got a lighthearted assist from Sinbad, the comedian.

Chatting with Mary Ann Akers, who pens the Washington Post’s Sleuth blog, Sinbad scoffed at the notion that the trip he, Clinton and singer Sheryl Crow took to Bosnia in 1996 was a perilous mission freighted with import.

The excursion’s primary goal was to entertain U.S. troops and, according to Sinbad, the trip’s scariest part “was wondering where we’d eat next.”

In a quote that has gained some notice, the avowed Obama supporter told Akers: “I think the only ‘red-phone’ moment was: ‘Do we eat here or at the next place?’ ”

Texas still counting . . .

With most states having already held their primaries or caucuses for the 2008 presidential race, Texas Democrats are the clear front-runners for the year’s most poorly run contest.

It’s been nearly two weeks since the Democrats in the Lone Star State held their much-publicized two-step process -- a primary by day, a caucus by night. And the second part of that dance card remains a muddled mess.

The AP has kept tabs on the sluggish vote count and reported the other day that results from fewer than half of the precinct caucuses had been reported.

Of the caucuses reported, Obama led Clinton 56% to 43% in the latest AP tally.

If that holds up, the Texas delegation should be pretty much split down the middle (assuming they get this figured out by the time the national convention convenes in late August in Denver).

Clinton won the primary narrowly, giving her 65 delegates to Obama’s 61.

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Times staff writer Scott Martelle contributed to this report.

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Excerpted from The Times’ political blog, Top of the Ticket, at www.latimes.com/topoftheticket