Obama losing lead over rival McCain in opinion polls

Washington, Aug 7 (PTI) Barack Obama's high profile tour
of Iraq and Afghanistan last month has failed to change public
perceptions of his war-management abilities and his camp is
worried about his narrowing lead over Republican rival John
McCain in recent polls.

A new C.B.S. News poll shows only 20 percent of those
surveyed saying that Obama is "very likely" to be an effective
commander-in-chief, down 4 percentage points from last month.

McCain is seen as "very likely" to be effective by 38
percent of respondents, down eight points from last month but
still significantly ahead of the Democratic presidential
nominee.

The Illinois senator, who led McCain in double digits, is
now barely holding on the lead in latest polls, and in some
cases appears to have give up momentum if the margin of error
is factored into.

A Gallup daily tracking poll released Tuesday showed
Obama with a four-point advantage but, for the first time
since June, losing the battle for independents by 43 percent
to 40 percent.

What is being also pointed out is that McCain is seen as
catching up in critical states like Ohio and Florida, places
that are very critical in the showdown of November 4.

In Minnesota, McCain jumped to a 48 percent to 40 percent
lead among independents, after Obama led in June by 21 points;
and the Arizona Republican has also jumped to a lead among
independent voters in both Ohio and Florida.

Top Democrats are worried that Obama and his campaign is
not going aggressively after Senator McCain. "That element
exists — there's no question," Governor of Pennsylvania Ed
Rendell told The Hill newspaper.

"Even I called some Obama people and said, 'Hey, let’s
get on the air and hammer this guy (McCain) for being the
biggest hypocrite there is," Gov Rendell, who backed Senator
Hillary Rodham Clinton during the primaries, said.

"I think there's definitely some trepidation," an unnamed
Democratic strategist has been cited in The Hill.

"The Obama people definitely need to worry about McCain
setting the terms of the debate. There's no reason any week
should go by without hearing why McCain is an extension of the
Bush administration, and that’s what happened last week."

Writing in The Washington Post, columnist Harold Meyerson
points out to a real and serious problem that Senator Obama
must address.

"... How to move the election back to a referendum on the
direction of our economic and security policies, while also
reassuring swing voters that he's not the "presumptuous" (this
year's Republican code word for "uppity") novice, disconnected
from the travails of ordinary Americans, that McCain makes him
out to be," Meyerson argued.

"It was one thing for Obama to lose white working-class
vote to Hillary Clinton, whose fundamental economic policies
weren't all that different from his own.

"But to have as much trouble with that constituency
against John McCain, even allowing for the reluctance of many
white Americans to make a black man president, bespeaks
Obama's ongoing difficulty in persuading voters that he's on
their side in matters economic and that John McCain isn't" he
added.