MORNING READ

Democrats have more reasons on Tuesday morning to be optimistic about their chances in November. A new Washington Post/ABC poll shows their candidates leading John McCain, who could lose votes to newly announced Libertarian candidate Bob Barr, liberal bloggers write. Even conservative bloggers are panning House Republicans, who attacked Barack Obama’s interview on Israel and are trying to co-opt one of the Democrats’ main messages.

The poll shows both Obama and Hillary Clinton with significant leads over McCain. Perhaps more worrisome for the right is that about four-fifths of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track and that voters prefer Democratic leadership to Republican leadership by a 21-percent margin, Daily Kos’s DemFromCT notes. While Democrats have been concerned about a prolonged primary fight between Obama and Clinton, at least a tenth of Republicans would be willing to defect to a Democrat in November, writes Todd Beeton at MyDD. And voters are more concerned about McCain’s age than Obama’s race or Clinton’s gender, Josh Marshall points out.

Barr, the former House Republican, tells The Corner’s Stephen Spruiell he doesn