MORNING READ

Barack Obama has regained his lead in the national polls, liberal bloggers eagerly note. Obama, however, has showed he’s running a negative campaign by airing a Spanish-language ad that distorts Rush Limbaugh’s words and John McCain’s position on immigration, conservative bloggers write. McCain makes his own Spanish gaffe when he seemed to forget in an interview that Spain is a U.S. ally, according to liberal bloggers.

Obama, thanks largely to attacks on McCain for his response to the Wall Street crisis, has regained the campaign momentum and blunted the appeal of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R), writes The Huffington Post’s Thomas B. Edsall. Obama is up nationally by five percentage points, 49 percent to 44 percent, in the New York Times/CBS poll, and by six percentage points, 49 percent to 43 percent, in the Daily Kos/Research 2000 tracking poll, writes Daily Kos’s DemFromCT, who notes that Obama is seen as the “change” candidate and is even with McCain among white women voters. According to the state polls, Obama’s road to victory is likely to go through some combination of victories in Virginia, Colorado and New Mexico, instead of wins in the swing states of Ohio and Florida, where McCain still leads, writes kos.

Obama’s new ad distorts Limbaugh’s position on immigration and unfairly tries to link his anti-illegal immigration stance to the more lenient record of McCain, writes Political Punch’s Jake Tapper in a factcheck. Obama’s ad is a “nasty smear” that serves as evidence that the Democrat is the most negative campaigner, writes Contentions’ Jennifer Rubin. The press should follow Tapper’s lead and heap criticism upon Obama for the false ad, just as it did when it found McCain’s ads to be less than truthful, writes Townhall’s Carol Platt Liebau.

McCain, in an interview with a Spanish reporter but conducted in English, talked about standing up to America’s enemies when asked about U.S. ally Spain and its prime minister, Jose Luis Zapatero, writes TalkingPointsMemo’s Josh Marshall. The blogger agrees with foreign press accounts that McCain confused the European nation with a more leftist Latin American country. McCain, who either didn’t know Spain was part of NATO or the prime minister’s name, undercut his own argument that he’s the candidate with experience and national security credibility, writes Matthew Yglesias.

FROM THE BLOGS:
Campaign Momentum Shifts to Obama – Tom Edsall, Huffington Post
Kos/R2K Poll: Obama Leads by Six – DemFromCT, Daily Kos
The Battleground – kos, Daily Kos
CBS/NYT: McCain Still Tied to Bush – DemFromCT, Daily Kos
Obama’s False, Racially Divisive Ad – Carol Platt Liebau, Townhall.com
Obama Ad Es Erroneo – Jake Tapper, Political Punch
Who’s The Most Negative? – Jennifer Rubin, Contentions
Back to The Sixties – Victor Davis Hanson, The Corner
Oy – Josh Marshall, TalkingPointsMemo
McCain Unsure If He’ll Meet With Spain P.M. – Matthew Yglesias

OTHER NEWS SOURCES:
Lawmakers On Sidelines As Fed, Treasury Act – Washington Post
McCain Can’t Seem to Find Economic Footing – Los Angeles Times
McCain Seen Less Likely to Bring Change, Poll Finds – New York Times
Big Three Ask for Billions – The Hill