ABC News/Washington Post Poll: Palin Vice President Pick And Ayers Hurt McCain

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll suggests Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain’s decisions to pick Gov. Sarah Palin and listen to his party’s most conservative partisans and press the Ayers-Obama-weak-on-terrorism issue has cost the GOPer needed support.

It also suggests again that McCain would have been better off protecting his 2000 “brand” as a kind of political fusion candidate who appealed to both parties and to independent voters, rather than to seemingly-take the advice of the GOP’s most partisan factions, conservative pundits and radio talk show hosts and morph into a more traditional Republican candidate:

More challenges for John McCain: More challenges for John McCain: Likely voters overwhelmingly reject his effort to make an issue of Barack Obama’s association with 1960s radical William Ayers. Fallout continues from McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin for vice president, with 52 percent saying it weakens their confidence in his judgment. And on optimism, it’s Obama by 2-1.

Skepticism about the Ayers issue was one of the factors cited by Colin Powell in his endorsement of Obama yesterday, and in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, likely voters broadly agree: 60 percent say Obama’s relationship with Ayers is not a legitimate issue in the presidential campaign; 37 percent say it is.

ABC News noted that there is much less of a split on the issue of ACORN:

There’s less of a split, though, on the Obama campaign’s association with the community group ACORN; 49 percent say it’s not a legitimate issue, 40 percent say it is, with more, 11 percent, unready to express an opinion on the subject. McCain’s accused ACORN of voter registration fraud; the group blames some of its canvassers for filling out faked forms, and says it itself has notified the authorities of such cases.

On the vice presidential candidates, 52 percent of likely voters say McCain’s pick of Palin has made them less confident in the kind of decisions he’d make as president; that’s up 13 points since just after the selection, as doubts about Palin’s qualifications (also voiced by Powell on Sunday) have grown. Just 38 percent say it makes them more confident in McCain’s judgment, down 12 points.

Those numbers are more than reversed on Obama’s pick of Joe Biden: 56 percent of likely voters say it makes them more confident in Obama’s decision-making, 31 percent less so.

Another factor that should concern McCain’s camp. Obama is seen as the more optimistic candidate, 62 to 30 percent — and by a 17 percent margin think Obama’s temperament is better suited for the Oval office. These kinds of numbers are hard to reverse in two weeks time. And the candidate who is perceived as the most optimistic is often the one who wins the election.