Below The Beltway

There’s no good news in the latest CBS News/New York Times poll for the McCain campaign:

The McCain campaign’s recent angry tone and sharply personal attacks on Senator Barack Obama appear to have backfired and tarnished Senator John McCain more than their intended target, the latest New York Times/CBS News poll has found.

After several weeks in which the McCain campaign unleashed a series of harsh political attacks on Mr. Obama, trying to tie him to a former 1960s radical, among other things, the poll found that voters see Mr. McCain as waging a more negative campaign than Mr. Obama. Six in 10 of those surveyed said that Mr. McCain had spent more time attacking Mr. Obama than explaining what he would do as president; by the same margin voters said Mr. Obama was spending more of his time explaining than attacking.

Voters who said that their opinions of Mr. Obama had changed recently were twice as likely to say that they had gotten better as to say they had gotten worse. And voters who said that their views of Mr. McCain had changed were three times more likely to say that they had gotten worse than to say they had improved. The top reasons cited by those who said that thought less of Mr. McCain were his recent attacks and his choice of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate. (The vast majority said that their opinions of Mr. Obama, the Democratic nominee, and Mr. McCain, the Republican nominee, had remained unchanged in recent weeks.)

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Over all, the poll found that if the election were held today, 53 percent of those determined to be probable voters said that they would vote for Mr. Obama and 39 percent said they would vote for Mr. McCain. When Ralph Nader and Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate, were included in the question, the race narrowed slightly, with 51 percent of those surveyed saying that they were supporting Mr. Obama and 39 percent supporting Mr. McCain, with Mr. Nader getting the support of 3 percent and Mr. Barr 1 percent. Other polls have shown Mr. Obama ahead by a smaller margin.

More importantly for McCain and Palin, though, is the fact that the poll seems to suggest that the Ayers gambit has backfired, spectacularly:

After several weeks in which the McCain campaign sought to tie Mr. Obama to William Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground, 64 percent of those polled said that they either read or heard about the subject. But a majority of those surveyed said they were not bothered by Mr. Obama’s background or past associations. Several people said in follow-up interviews that they felt Mr. McCain’s attacks on Mr. Obama were too rooted in the past, or too unconnected to the nation’s major problems.

“What bothers me is that McCain initially talked about running a campaign on issues and I want to hear him talk about the issues,” said Flavio Lorenzoni, a 59-year-old independent from Manalapan, N.J. “But we’re being constantly bombarded with attacks that aren’t relevant to making a decision about what direction McCain would take the country. McCain hasn’t addressed the real issues. He’s only touched on them very narrowly. This is a time when we need to address issues much more clearly than they ever have been in the past.”

The poll found that Mr. Obama is now supported by majorities of men and independents, two groups that he has been fighting to win over. And the poll found, for the first time, that white voters are just about evenly divided between Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama, who is seeking to become the first African-American president. The poll found that Mr. Obama is supported by 45 percent of white voters — a greater percentage than has voted for Democrats in recent presidential elections, according to exit polls.

Mr. McCain was viewed unfavorably by 41 percent of those surveyed, and favorably by 36 percent. Ms. Palin’s favorability rating is now 32 percent, down 8 points from last month, and her unfavorable rating climbed 11 percentage points to 41 percent. Mr. Obama’s favorability rating, by contrast, is now at 50 percent — the highest recorded for him thus far by The Times and CBS News.

This is the mountain that John McCain faces heading into tomorrow’s debate. If he is able to overcome a deficit like this, it will be comeback unlike any seen in modern American politics.