Momentum

Coming off of the Republican Convention, the McCain campaign was rolling. Palin was drawing big crowds, enthusiasm for the ticket was reaching new heights and people started asking if maybe McCain, against some stiff odds, could pull this thing out. And then the wheels came off.

The campaign trail has knocked some of the shine off of Palin’s halo, as has the looming “Troopergate” scandal and the “not ready for primetime” exposition of her wafer thin grasp of foreign policy. The silly lies and demonstrably false statements about everything from Palin’s faux opposition to the Bridge to Nowhere to exaggerating the size of crowds at their rallies has devastated McCain’s well cultivated image of the straight talking maverick [Ed. Note – Joe Klein’s Time piece is must read stuff]. In the span of a couple weeks, the mainstream media’s tone shifted from his biggest cheerleader to that of a jilted ex-lover mourning the changes in the man they once loved (see Cohen, Richard). And following all of this bad news, McCain’s reaction to Wall Street’s convulsions has been at turns, out of touch , weak, and utterly contradictory , demonstrating once again that he is not the guy we need running the economy. In short, it has been one helluva couple weeks for Team McCain. Combined with the fact that Obama has started to throw some rhetorical elbows to make his case, I believe that the tide of the race is beginning to turn against McCain and a whole bunch of new polling supports that.

CNN / TIME / ORC has Florida tied and Obama +4 if Nader, Barr, and McKinney (NBM) are included, Indiana at McCain +6 and +5 with NBM, North Carolina at McCain +1 either way, Ohio +2 for Obama both ways, and Wisconsin with Obama +3 and +4 with NBM.

Indianapolis Star / Selzer & Co has Obama up by three in Indiana, a state Bush won handily in 2004.

SUSA has Obama at 52% in New Mexico.

Allstate / National Journal finds Obama +1 in Colorado, +7 in New Mexico, even in Florida, McCain +1 in Ohio and +7 in Virginia.

This thing is tight but it would seem that the Big Mo is now with Obama.