CBS News/New York Times Poll: Obama Takes 14 Point Lead Over McCain

A new CBS News/New York Times poll has Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama taking his biggest lead yet over Republican Sen. John McCain — and part of the reason is that the dam has apparently burst and independent voters are now flowing to Obama:

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is entering the third and final presidential debate Wednesday with a wide lead over Republican rival John McCain nationally, a new CBS News/New York Times poll shows.

The Obama-Biden ticket now leads the McCain-Palin ticket 53 percent to 39 percent among likely voters, a 14-point margin. One week ago, prior to the Town Hall debate that uncommitted voters saw as a win for Obama, that margin was just three points.

Among independents who are likely voters – a group that has swung back and forth between McCain and Obama over the course of the campaign – the Democratic ticket now leads by 18 points. McCain led among independents last week.

Close readers of TMV could sense this coming this year on this site itself. TMV has more than 20 people signed up (people post when they want — there is no quota and there are no orders to write specific posts or write them any way). Some writers who are independents or moderate Republicans started out either favoring McCain or privately sympathetic to him. Many of them reluctantly stopped supporting him. And here is part of the reason why:

McCain’s campaign strategy may be hurting hurt him: Twenty-one percent of voters say their opinion of the Republican has changed for the worse in the last few weeks. The top two reasons cited for the change of heart are McCain’s attacks on Obama and his choice of Sarah Palin as running mate.

Many independent voters don’t like demonization and divide-and-rule politics. They wanted to see a post-Bush-era campaign of serious issues. Similarly, polls show moderates have broken against McCain now by some 60 percent.

Moderates and independents are often dismissed as wishy washy because they don’t follow a party line, or in the tank for one side if they dare become critical of it (at all levels of politics, people now demonize those who disagree with them). In fact, McCain could have done a lot better in this campaign had he a)run a campaign of issues, b)gotten back on the tightrope he gingerly walked during the campaign season, trying to win over his party base AND moderates and independents, c)picked almost any other primary who had been in serious consideration for Vice President than Sarah Palin.

Indeed, a key Bush strategist contends McCain knew Palin was not qualified when he picked her, according to The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein:

Matthew Dowd, a prominent political consultant and chief strategist for George W. Bush’s reelection campaign eviscerated John McCain on Tuesday for his choice of Sarah Palin as vice president.

Dowd proclaimed that, in his heart of hearts, McCain knew he put the country at risk with his VP choice and that he would “have to live” with that fact for the rest of his career.

“They didn’t let John McCain pick the person he wanted to pick as VP,” Dowd declared during the Time Warner Summit panel. “When Sarah Palin got picked instead of Joe Lieberman, which I fundamentally believed would have given John McCain the best opportunity in this race… as soon as he picked Palin, that whole ready versus not ready argument was not credible.”

Saying that Palin was a “net negative” on the ticket, he went on: “[McCain] knows, in his gut, that he put somebody unqualified on the ballot. He knows that in his gut, and when this race is over that is something he will have to live with… He put somebody unqualified on that ballot and he put the country at risk, he knows that.”

….”No, I don’t agree,” said Mark McKinnon, a former McCain aide, after chiding Dowd for claiming particular insight into McCain’s soul.

“Well,” responded Dowd, “that’s even more disturbing than my thought” — the implication being that it would be truly frightening if McCain didn’t know how bad Palin truly was.

TWO PREDICTIONS:

1. Future polls may not continue upward for Obama and the race could tighten. There is still one more debate and three weeks where Obama could make a gaffe or the McCain camp could find some negative campaigning that finally gains mass traction.

2. No matter what, Palin is a future GOP star. Rather than being the GOP’s Hillary Clinton (a comparison that is basically just sexist), she has shaped up for many Democrats (and independent voters) to be the new Richard Nixon in terms of her zest for rhetorical divisiveness and the questionable accuracy of some of her assertions. She will have the segment of the GOP that believes in take-no-prisoners partisan attacks and “base mobilization” elections pushing for her in 2012 if McCain loses — and other segments of the party will likely push a candidate who’s a break from the Bush-Rove talk radio political culture. But Palin will be around for a while. And social conservatives will be palling around with Palin.

Follow blog reaction on this poll HERE.