Barack Losing the Love

More evidence that Barack is losing steam comes from Newsweek. Using a different approach to adjusting for party affiliation than Gallup and Rasmussen, Newsweek offers numbers that are more volatile. Last month, they showed Barack leading by 15 points, which lead to big coverage around the world of a false premise - Barack will cruise to the presidency. This month, their numbers are in line with the other polls.

A month after emerging victorious from the bruising Democratic nominating contest, some of Barack Obama's glow may be fading. In the latest NEWSWEEK Poll, the Illinois senator leads Republican nominee John McCain by just 3 percentage points, 44 percent to 41 percent. The statistical dead heat is a marked change from last month's NEWSWEEK Poll, where Obama led McCain by 15 points, 51 percent to 36 percent.

With McCain still struggling to find his campaign groove, Barack is losing credibility with the American people, and he's doing it without outside help.

Obama's reversal on FISA legislation, his support of faith-based initiatives and his decision to opt out of the campaign public-financing system left him open to charges he was a flip-flopper. In the new poll, 53 percent of voters (and 50 percent of former Hillary Clinton supporters) believe that Obama has changed his position on key issues in order to gain political advantage.

As Barack has flipped on what his base thought were foundational principles, independents have realized, as they watch him raise big money with Hillary, that his "agent of change" brand was just a marketing ploy for the primaries.

In the new poll, McCain leads Obama among independents 41 percent to 34 percent, with 25 percent favoring neither candidate. In June's NEWSWEEK Poll, Obama bested McCain among independent voters, 48 percent to 36 percent.

While this turnaround shows that Barack may have done lasting damage to his brand, the most intriguing number is the 25% of independents who haven't seen enough they like yet from either candidate.

Barack is also suffering a white voter deficit.

The new poll suggests white voters continue to be a challenge for Obama, with McCain leading the Democrat in that category 48 to 36 percent.

The U.S. is still 75% white, and whites don't like Democrats - Kerry lost by 17% amongst whites, and Gore lost them by 12%.

The new Newsweek poll brings the Real Clear Politics average down to a 4.8% lead for Barack - a number which is tempered by the inclusion of several older polls.

Remember - the polls aren't good indicators of what will happen in November. Perceptions of this race will change dramatically in the fall, after the August conventions - they are indicators of what is happening today. And for Barack, what we're seeing is damage, which could prove tough to correct, to the underlying premise of his candidacy.

This is a calculation that his campaign has made - they knew they would pay a price for making subtle shifts in his positions, as many have done before him.

The two factors they misjudged are:

1. They changed too many big issues too fast
2. He pays a higher price than other politicians because he campaigned on being different during the primaries. Now people can see that was a ruse.
   

For more on this, read yesterday's post.