WASHINGTON - Barack Obama holds a slight advantage over John McCain going into the final phase of the 2008 campaign, which is shaping up more as a personality contest than a battle of ideas.
Both candidates are framing the choice for voters around a theme of change, but strategists - foreshadowing continued attacks by both campaigns and a heavy dose of negative ads - say that McCain's chances for winning may ultimately depend on his ability to stoke doubts about Obama's readiness for the presidency.
"There are more Democrats than Republicans in America today, and Obama would still be the favorite to win. But I would not be surprised if McCain upset him," said Merle Black, an Emory University political scientist.
Because Obama "is somebody who's really unknown in any great detail to most Americans," the presidential debates, which begin the week after next, may be unusually important in helping undecided voters make up their mind, he added. "And so, it's Obama's to lose."
With Election Day just over eight weeks away, the race is very competitive. The latest Gallup daily tracking poll, released yesterday, showed that a positive bounce for McCain out of last week's Republican convention had cut Obama's lead to two percentage points, 47-45, a statistical tie.
The candidates were dead even, 45-45, heading into the Democratic convention. Top advisers in both camps say a clear picture of the fall campaign won't emerge until post-convention polling is completed later this week.
In an unusual bipartisan gesture at the height of a hard-fought campaign, Obama and McCain issued a joint statement yesterday announcing that they would "put aside politics" and appear together Thursday to mark the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11 attack at the site of the former World Trade Center in New York.
But that momentary truce isn't likely to change the tone of the campaign. Obama went after McCain again yesterday, in a speech via satellite to AARP, for "not offering much change."
At the same time, Obama has tried to inoculate himself against expected Republican attacks. He has repeatedly criticized a comment by McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, who said last week that the election "is not about issues" but instead is about the candidates' personalities - "their values, their character, their opinions, their principles."
