FDU presidential poll brings both sides out of the trenches

The McCain campaign played down a Fairleigh Dickinson University poll released today that shows their candidate with a double digit deficit against Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

Democrats, meanwhile, stayed on message about how a belly up Bush administration has left the GOP in tatters.

Looking at today’s poll, Peter Feldman, spokesman for the McCain campaign in New Jersey, noted that Obama recently beat Sen. Hillary Clinton to become the presumptive Democratic Party nominee.

"That obviously gave him a bump in the poll," Feldman said.

"Our polling shows the race much closer, which is what the recent Quinnipiac University poll demonstrates as well - that John McCain is just six points behind Barack Obama," added the spokesman.

Rather than showing fear in the face of the 49-33% Obama edge according to Fairleigh, Team McCain underlined another number: 18%, or the percentage of former Clinton supporters whom the poll identifies as dug in against the idea of voting for Obama.

"It’s no secret we’re going to have to win Democrats and independents," Feldman said.

Richard McGrath, spokesman for the State Democratic Committee, said it won’t work.

"A one-hundred year war, an economy in ruins, drilling off the coast - this will all only propel Barack Obama with New Jersey voters," McGrath said. "It will sink McCain and any other Republicans trying to hold onto him."

Trying to get around Bush blowback on the presumptive GOP nominee - the current Republican president’s job approval rating among New Jersey voters stands at 18%, according to the Fairleigh poll - Team McCain this week hearkened back to the Ronald Reagan presidency and his Cold War leadership.

"Ronald Reagan last campaigned in New Jersey when?" asked U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman, northeast regional co-chair of the Obama campaign. "Twenty years ago.

"I met John McCain and I met Ronald Reagan, and John McCain is no Ronald Reagan," added the congressman.

The Republican candidate for president can’t duck his green lighting for the most part of the seven plus years of Bush, in Rothman’s view; and going way back to Reagan can’t undo the more immediate wreckage.

"The demographics have changed since Ronald Reagan ran for president," Rothman said. "Our state and the nation have suffered grievously under a Republican administration that has caused damage both here and abroad. What this is about is we do not want to give four more years of life to these Bush policies here and abroad."