As Polls Sag, McCain is Hit on Foreign Policy ELECTIONS 2008

By Brian Knowlton

With the battered U.S. economy giving Barack Obama his first significant lead in opinion polls at a crucial time, the Democratic candidate’s running mate broadened the attack against John McCain on Wednesday and did so on the Republican’s favored turf: foreign policy and national security.

“Time and again, on the most critical national security issues of our time, John McCain’s judgment was wrong,” Senator Joseph Biden said in a speech in Cincinnati.

And on the importance of focusing attention on the Afghanistan- Pakistan border area, Biden said: “John McCain is more than wrong. He is dangerously wrong.”

Speaking two days before the first presidential debate, and perhaps foreshadowing a line of attack Obama will try against McCain, Biden said that if terrorists make a major strike against the United States, “it will almost certainly come from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border – where the Bush-McCain approach let down our guard and let our enemies off the hook.”

Both sides have been sharpening their rhetoric, but the Obama campaign appears to have regained momentum.

New national polls show the Democratic candidate with a slight but statistically significant lead, largely because voters – who now rate the economy as far more important even than the Iraq war – see Obama as better equipped to handle economic matters.

Obama holds a 14-point lead over McCain when voters are asked which candidate they would trust more with the economy, according to an ABC-Washington Post poll. The poll shows the Democrat leading among likely voters by 52 percent to 43 percent.

That is the first statistically significant lead either candidate has held in this poll. It gives Obama a higher level of support at this point than Al Gore held in 2000 or Senator John Kerry enjoyed in 2004.

In every election since 1948, such a lead at this point in a race has meant victory in November. The historic dimensions of the current race, however – it could place the first black president in the Oval Office, or elect the first female vice president – could make ordinary guideposts less reliable.

Other surveys similarly favored Obama. A new CNN poll showed a 5- point Obama lead. And Gallup surveys showed Democrats re- establishing a double-digit lead in party identification over Republicans. That lead had narrowed with McCain’s selection of Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate and in the days after the Republican national convention.

The ABC/Post poll showed that despite initial enthusiasm for Palin, McCain and Obama were now running about even among white women.

Uncertainties over the economy remained exceptionally high, and polls showed it was by far the leading concern among undecided voters.

At the same time, McCain appeared to hold unusual leverage on the $700 billion financial bailout sought by the administration. Reports say that members of both parties are watching McCain’s stance on the plan with extreme interest.

“If McCain doesn’t come out for this, it’s over,” a top House Republican told ABC, while a senior Democratic source said that Democrats were not likely to support the bailout unless McCain did, unwilling to be left alone to take the blame for a program whose likely costs have infuriated many taxpayers.

McCain has been skeptical about those costs, and about a lack of accountability in the administration’s proposal, and he wants limits on compensation to the chief executives of companies being rescued. Obama has expressed similar reservations, saying that any plan must provide for a payback for taxpayers if the bailout succeeds and must assist homeowners struggling to pay mortgages.

Both men still seem likely to support the final legislation, but some Democrats fear that McCain might yet oppose it as a way to establish distance, all at once, from Wall Street, Congress and the Bush administration.

McCain met Wednesday in New York with a panel of business executives to sound them out on the bailout.

But while McCain was focused on the economy, Biden attacked him in an area where voters still favor him: his leadership abilities and security expertise.

“Our country is less secure and more isolated than it has been at any time in recent history,” said, Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “This administration has dug America into a very deep hole around the world.”

Palin was in New York on Wednesday for a second day of meetings with world leaders.

She and McCain met with the Ukrainian president, Viktor Yuschenko, and President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia, who had warm words for the Republican senator.

Originally published by The New York Times Media Group.

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