On Those National Polls

The Obama campaign has two disadvantages when it comes to spinning reporters about poll numbers.

One is an us-versus-the-establishment mentality that has, at times, served to protect the campaign from the ill-winds of fashionable opinion: last summer, the national press all but wrote Obama's obituary. He wasn't making clean contrasts with Clinton, they -- we wrote. He was too cautious. His campaign was too personality-driven. Too few people surrounded him. And then events proved the press wrong.

So when the establishment begins its quadrennial carping about strategy, the inclination among many Obama advisers is to simply ignore it. Or blame the press. "You guys," as one senior Obama adviser put it to me.

The second is that, from the top down, campaign advisers simply haven't looked at national poll numbers as a proxy for success. They didn't during the primaries, they didn't this spring, and they aren't now.  (Image what Democrats would say if Hillary Clinton were entering her convention tied. "She's squandered her lead! She's going to lose it all!"  That Democrats aren't saying that -- yet -- is testament to the faith they have in Obama's agility.)

But numbers are numbers.  Reliable national surveys, from Pew to Bloomberg and the Los Angeles Times to tonight's CBS News / New York Times poll, all show a vector.  John McCain has improved by a few points. The internally differ as to why, although there are a few common threads. One is that John McCain is doing better among conservative identifiers -- those folks who define themselves as ideological conservatives. They can be independents, Republicans, even Democrats.  The reason for this is not terribly clear, but it stands to reason that the success of the surge, McCain's finesse of the gas price issue, and perhaps his posturing against Russia all contributed. The other is that McCain launched a rather nasty negative advertising campaign frontally attacking Barack Obama's character. It worked, to the extent that such a tactic can work.  Compounding the type of attack was the timing. I do not think the Obama campaign expected this from John McCain, and certainly didn't expect it to begin while Obama was overseas. Obama's favorable ratings are down.

But think of this development as simply a beachhead growing a few inches taller against a very powerful wave.  Eight years of Republicans and President Bush. A Democratic advantage on the economy -- an economy which is not improving. A Democratic GOTV advantage. A Democratic enthusiasm advantage. A Democratic down-ballot advantage. And McCain was always, inevitably going to grow stronger as partisanship set in.  A segment of Obama's independent and Democratic vote was an anti-Clinton vote; Obama looked good in comparison to Clinton. Without Clinton, Obama was just a personality. The campaign has struggled to find a way to reset those impressions, and some folks have probably drifted.

McCain has given them something to think about this summer: Obama. And Obama hasn't returned the favor. He hasn't defined McCain in a visceral way, yet.  He hasn't demonstrated that he can connect with working class white voters, although voters do find him empathetic enough. He can do both of these at the convention, and there are indications that he's doing the former in states with advertising.