THE WHY

Posted at 8:25 a.m. ET

The general consensus among political writers is that McCain is slightly ahead.  The Politico has looked at the situation and provided five reasons why.  I think this is a reasonable, if tentative analysis.  A week is a lifetime in politics, and things can change:

John McCain’s surge in the polls comes even as Barack Obama has inherited the most favorable Democratic environment since the Watergate era—an unpopular Republican president, an unpopular war and a flagging economy.

Suddenly, though, Democrats have found themselves in a world turned upside down, where Republicans have the momentum from running on change—and the latest wunderkind of presidential politics.

Below are five trends showing up in polling that help explain the change.

McCain as change agent.

Eight in ten Americans say they believe the country is on the wrong track. Obama has built his campaign on the perception that he is both the personification of change and the man to enact it.

Despite a member of his party in the White House and his decades in D.C., recent polling shows that McCain has managed to successfully portray himself as a change agent, and erode Obama’s brand in the process.

The center shifts.  Independents move to McCain.

Independent voters, and particularly white independent men, have leaned Republican in presidential races since 1980. But before the Republican convention, Galllup polling showed just 40 percent of independents favoring McCain.

Post convention, that rose to 52 percent—and the increase in support was slightly greater among men than among women, which appears to undercut the idea that Palin has benefited the ticket by drawing women to it.

The economic gap narrows.

James Carville, who coined the catchphrase “the economy, stupid” in 1992 while working as a strategist for Bill Clinton, frets that Obama is losing his ownership of the issue that has become voters’ foremost concern in recent months.

“I noticed the tightening on the economy,” Carville said. “And if it stays that way, I would be damn worried.”

Palin narrows the enthusiasm gap.

The Republican base, once disenchanted, has returned with a vengeance since McCain’s surprise pick of the first-term Alaska governor as his running mate.

This week’s CBS News poll found that 53 percent of Obama voters said they were “enthusiastic” about Obama, up five points since before his party’s convention, and still better than the 42 percent of McCain supports who feel the same way. McCain’s support though is up 18 points since selecting Palin.

The NBC-Wall Street Journal poll found that only 12 percent of McCain’s supporters were “excited to be voting” for him in early August. This week 34 percent said they were excited—nearly a three-fold increase.

Democrat voter ID edge dulls.

The week before the Republican convention, just 39 percent of voters said they leaned toward or identified themselves as Republicans. Following the convention, that number rose dramatically to 47 percent, Meanwhile the percentage of voters leaning toward or identifying themselves as Democrats dropped from 53 to 47 percent. Gallup notes that party ID shifts are not unusual after a convention.

Gallup also now reports that the double-digit Democratic lead among voters asked which party they’d generically prefer to control Congress has disappeared, and the two parties are now effectively tied.

What is significant, I think, is that all this is happening during the most relentless press assault on a candidate I've seen since the assault on Barry Goldwater in 1964.  The continuing attack on Sarah Palin either isn't working, or is creating a backlash.

McCain's gains can, of course, be reversed.  But there's an old political saying that you can't beat somebody with nobody, and Barack Obama is quickly turning into a nobody.  The novelty has worn off, his attacks on McCain have taken on a desperate quality, and many of his allies among the bloggers, journalists and ladies of "The View" aren't doing him any good with their wild statements.

One question is whether Sarah Palin's novelty will wear off as well.  It might if she does more of these overly familiar sit-downs. 

And the McCain campaign must be careful.  Its aggressiveness and daring have worked.  But a certain sloppiness about facts and claims is creeping into its rhetoric.  Eventually, the public may react if there are too many exaggerations or botched statistics.  The press will not investigate Obama's claims and will not examine his background the way they've examined Palin's.  There's no help available there.  The McCain campaign has to be almost bulletproof to continue upward.

September 14, 2008.