Palin, convention put McCain in lead

A successful Republican convention resulting from John McCain’s surprise selection of his running mate has given the Arizona senator the polling lead with less than 60 days to go before Election Day.

But Democrats caution that national polling is fickle, and that both the race and, more specifically, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin have yet to be defined.

{mosads}Polling released Monday shows the McCain-Palin ticket moving past Democratic nominee Barack Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden (Del.), in what was supposed to be a politically toxic year for Republicans.

Republican strategists said that McCain had an all-around successful convention that both poked holes in Obama’s candidacy and introduced Palin, a vice presidential nominee who “literally overnight” energized the conservative base of the Republican Party.

“Certainly McCain has gotten a bounce,” said GOP strategist Doug Heye (also a contributor to The Hill’s Pundits Blog). “The choice of Palin knocked the political wind out of the Obama campaign. They were absolutely caught off guard. They’re staggering right now.”

Polls that came out Monday ranged from a USA Today/Gallup poll taken over the weekend that showed McCain moving ahead of Obama by 10 points with likely voters to a CNN/Opinion Research Poll showing the race in a “dead heat.”

Every major poll released since the convention shows McCain with a lead or at least a tie, a marked change from most of a campaign season that has seen Obama leading, though by a narrow margin. The RealClearPolitics average of national polls showed McCain easing into the lead with an average of plus-1.2.

The McCain campaign said the bump can be attributed to voters taking a closer look at Obama and his record, two issues that bore the brunt of last week’s Republican criticism.

“Traditionally, after the conclusion of both parties’ conventions, voters begin to examine the candidates much more closely,” McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said. “As a result, voters are beginning to understand that John McCain has a record of delivering change and reforms — while Barack Obama lacks credibility because he has no record of reforming government or making change.”

Republicans were divided over whether the bump was a traditional boost that has historically resulted from a party’s convention or the result of the Palin pick, a choice that palpably excited Republicans on the ground in St. Paul.

“[McCain] had a very successful convention. That base has rallied around his campaign,” said Todd Harris, a Republican strategist and adviser to McCain’s 2000 presidential bid. “I think a lot of the bump can be attributed to her [Palin], though certainly not all of it.”

{mospagebreak}Democrats said they expected the McCain campaign to get a boost coming out of its convention, particularly as whatever spike Obama enjoyed was stymied by the short window between conventions and the national attention span quickly moving from Obama’s historic stadium acceptance speech to hurricane threats in the Gulf of Mexico.

Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic strategist, acknowledged that McCain is enjoying a convention bump and that the Arizona senator “had a good roll-out with Palin.”

Elmendorf cautioned, though, that the media spotlight will continue to be on Palin, and that her introduction to voters is far from over. On top of that, he said, the race will also return to McCain versus Obama as the vice presidential candidates return to the background they traditionally inhabit.

{mosads}“I’d want to see another week of polling averages before I got concerned,” Elmendorf said, adding that “state polls are more meaningful” than national averages.

Elmendorf warned that the Obama campaign should be wary of going after Palin, saying they should wait to see how “things shake out.”

“I wouldn’t overreact to these polls,” he said.

Jamal Simmons, an adviser to the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee, made a point of letting his friends know via Facebook that he thinks when it comes to polling, what comes around goes around.

“Jamal Simmons is thinking, ‘like little kids sucking on pixie sticks [sic], Republicans are on a sugar high. The crash is coming …’ ” Simmons wrote Monday. (Simmons gave his approval for that quote to be used for this story.)

The Obama campaign acknowledged a tight race, but Obama spokesman Nick Shapiro cautioned that national polls matter far less than state polls.

“We always knew that this race would be close — as presidential contests always are,” Shapiro said. “And we know that the race is going to be won in the states, which is why we have a laser focus on reaching voters in the battlegrounds. Most of the states in play are traditionally red states that are rejecting Bush’s policies and McCain’s promise to continue them. We’re going to stay focused on the issues. We’re not focused on national polls because the American people aren’t. They’re focused on how they’re going to provide for their families and which candidate is going to deliver the change we need. That’s Barack Obama.”

All strategists contacted for this story agreed that the presidential debates are potential game-changers, and that is where the election could be decided.

“I think that each poll matters until the next one,” Harris said. “The debates are going to be critically important.”

Harris added that he thinks this year’s debates, like the two conventions, will break all previous viewership records.

The first debate is just more than two weeks away. The candidates will meet at the University of Mississippi on Sept. 26 for the first of three debates.