Ross Douthat explains why McCain may have a problem after last night:
If these numbers show up in wider polling, it seems like awfully bad news for McCain. If he can’t get a bump from last night’s showing, which struck me as a pretty strong, I think it’s going to be awfully difficult for him to get a bump of any sort across the run of debates. It’s hard to envision him turning in a vastly better performance where the focus is explicitly on domestic policy (if you thought we heard a little too much about earmarks last night, just you wait …), and of course there’s the looming Palin-Biden fiasco for his campaign to weather as well. If undecided voters didn’t like what they saw from McCain last night, I don’t know what, exactly, his campaign can do – given his range and limitations as a politician, and the obvious weakness of his running mate – to win them over going forward.
The trend for the past two weeks has been in Obama’s favor, and McCain did nothing last night to stop it.
In fact, according to the latest Rasmussen poll, it’s gotten worse:
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows Barack Obama attracting 50% of the vote while John McCain earns 44%. This six-point advantage matches Obama’s biggest lead yet (see trends). Obama is now viewed favorably by 56% of voters, McCain by 54%.
If this holds up through the weekend, McCain could have a problem on his hands.
