In fact, here are how the numbers stack up.
-Among voters aged 18-29, Obama lost 16 percent and McCain gained 20. Obama still leads, 49-38;
-Among women, McCain gained 10 percentage points. Obama now leads 43-38;
-Among independents, Obama lost an 11 point lead. They're now tied;
-Among Democrats, Obama's support dropped from 83 percent to 74 percent;
-Among Catholics, Obama lost the 11 point lead he had in July and now trails McCain by 15.
The piece delicately notes that the erosion may be attributable to McCain's ads about Barack in the wake of his foreign "getting to know you" trip. Ya think?
The point is that Obama has long been a Rorschach candidate -- someone who spoke in a delicately ambiguous way that sounded good, and allowed everyone to see what they wanted to see in him.
Now, the McCain campaign is connecting the dots, and many Americans don't like what they see -- whether it's the "we are the ones we've been waiting for" hubris, the efforts to take all sides of a position (e.g. on offshore drilling, FISA and so much more), or even, fairly or not, the over-the-top behavior of wacked-out partisans like Ludacris. Most of all, it may have been Barack's own resort to the race card last week (a truly dumb strategic move) that has undermined his carefully crafted image as a "new kind of politician."
