McCain Leads Colorado as Tide Turns Against Obama Nationally

John McCain holds a slight but statistically insignificant lead in the Quinnipiac University poll on the Colorado presidential race.

McCain is up in Colorado 46 to 45 percent, but Quinnipiac notes that McCain holds advantages on key question items:

This latest survey might have more good news for McCain than might appear at first glance. Despite the closeness of the horse race numbers, he is viewed favorably 53 - 34 percent compared to Obama's 48 - 39 percent.

Colorado voters trust Obama more than McCain 49 - 42 percent to handle the energy crisis, 47 - 43 percent to handle the economy and 48 - 41 percent to handle a natural disaster.

But they trust McCain more, 51 - 37 percent, to handle Russia, 57 - 35 percent to handle a terrorist incident in the U.S. and 56 - 36 percent to handle a conflict between Iran and Israel.

"Colorado is one of the most important battleground states that will decide the presidency as Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama slug it out nose to nose. If the national election is close in November, a handful of votes in Colorado will be decisive," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "Right now, independent voters are split with 46 percent for Sen. McCain and 44 percent for Sen. Obama.

"Who wins the election may wind up depending on whether voters look inward to the economy and fuel prices or outward to world hot spots."

It will be interesting to see how things play out.

International events have contributed substantially to the Democratic slide in the polls (Obama's disastrous European tour, for example, as well as Democratic weakness on the Russia crisis). Not just that, polls show Americans less gloomy about the economy, and gasoline prices have declined somewhat, taking some stress off U.S. pocketbooks, and neutralizing a bit of the Democratic advantage on economic issues.

Nationally, McCain and Obama are tied at 45 percent in the latest Gallup poll, and Obama's selection of Senator Joseph Biden is not likely to improve Democratic polling numbers.

All of this is awful news for Barack Obama and his supporters. Indeed, the Democrats at this stage of the campaign - on the eve of a historically diverse national party convention - should now be pulling out a double-digit advantage over the GOP.

The fact that they are not explains, I would argue, why the Democratic left is so terrified that many are resorting to the most spurious allegations and irrational attacks imaginable.

The worst example, at the moment, is Jacob Weisberg's, who argued yesterday that "racism is the only reason" John McCain might win the election (but don't forget Dave Neiwart, who argues that using the adjective "audacious" to describe Obama is the new "presumptious," which is racist code for "uppity," if you can follow that).

Closely following behind Weisberg are Talking Points Memo, Think Progress, and Matthew Yglesias, who are enraged at Mark Halperin's suggestion that Obama's recent attacks on McCain's "houses" have opened him up to GOP attacks on Tony Rezko, Jeremiah Wright, and William Ayers. TBogg, as well, has added his screams to the left's totalitarian bid to silence AP reporter Ron Fournier for being friendly to Republicans.

And then there's the Newshoggers, who have joined the military-bashing meme attacking McCain for his political identification as a prisoner-of-war during Vietnam.

The fact is, despite a practically overdetermined Democratic election victory for this November, the tide has turned against Barack Obama and his partisans. Extreme fear and outrage on the left are starting to show as a result, so we can expect more desperate, unbridled attacks on alleged GOP racism or McCain's presumed media "adulation-advantage" going forward.

Note that with Barack Obama's selection of Senator Joseph Biden as running mate, some commentators have been offering up an Obama-Biden/Dukakis-Bentson analogy for the general election.

While clever, it's supremely unfair to Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bentson.

Not only did Dukakis hold a 47 to 41 percent advantage in Gallup polling on the eve of the 1988 Democratic National Convention (and, recall, Gallup finds the 2008 race tied today), Dukakis and Bentsen were eminently more qualified for the Oval Office than are Obama and Biden. Dukakis was the longest serving governor in the history of Massachusetts, and Bentsen really did serve with Jack Kennedy during his 48-year career in the United States Congress.

I'll have more later.