WASHINGTON - As Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama prepares for a major trip to Europe and the Middle East, a poll released Friday shows his supporters are much more fired up about race than those of his Republican opponent John McCain.
The poll by the Associated Press and Yahoo News showed that 38 percent of Obama's supporters say the election is exciting compared with 9 percent of McCain's. The passion and interest shown by blocs of voters are important because they affect who will be motivated to vote.
Obama faces hurdles of his own. The poll shows lagging fervor for the Democratic candidate by supporters of his vanquished rival in the party primaries, Hillary Rodham Clinton. And there are lots of dispirited and undecided independents, who are expected to be pivotal in the November election.
Obama and Clinton fought for the Democratic presidential nomination in a long and often bitter primary battle, in which Clinton frequently questioned whether Obama, a first-term senator, had the national security experience to serve as president.
Obama's trip is aimed at burnishing his foreign policy credentials, especially amid criticism from McCain, a longtime senator and war hero, that he is inexperienced.
The Democrat's campaign officials have announced stops in Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and England. Obama also has pledged to travel to Iraq and Afghanistan this summer, but aides have not said whether those war zones will be part of the same trip.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman on Friday confirmed the European leader will welcome Obama to her office in Berlin next Thursday.
On Friday, McCain was campaigning in the Midwestern swing state of Michigan. Obama did not have any public events Friday.
In the AP-Yahoo News poll, 65 percent of Obama's backers say they are hopeful about the campaign, double McCain's, and the Democrat's supporters are three times likelier to express pride.
In addition, individual groups backing Obama