Obama retakes the lead

After a big post-convention bounce for John McCain, the latest polls show Barack Obama has taken back the lead.

The Democratic presidential nominee leads in 5 of the last 7 polls conducted, according to Real Clear Politics. McCain leads in one poll by 1 point, and the seventh poll shows the race tied.

The new numbers represent a significant turnaround from the past few weeks, when Democrats scrambled to figure out how to respond to McCain's selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Palin excited the Republican base and gave the GOP ticket an important burst in the early September polls, but the new poll numbers indicate that the race has settled back to where it was before the conventions and during most of the summer, when Obama held a slight lead over McCain.

The latest poll, the New York Times/CBS News poll, showed Obama with a 5 point lead (48-43) over McCain. The survey was conducted Friday through Tuesday, and the results suggest that the Democratic counter attack against McCain may be proving effective.

Despite the McCain campaign's efforts to portray their ticket as "mavericks" and "reformers," the polls show that voters aren't buying it. Fifty-seven percent of all voters said they viewed McCain as a "typical Republican," according to the Times, while only 40 percent said he was a different kind of Republican.

The numbers also indicate that the economic turmoil on Wall Street may benefit the Democrats. "The poll was taken during a period of extraordinary turmoil on Wall Street," the Times reported. "By overwhelming numbers, Americans said the economy was the top issue affecting their vote decision, and they continued to express deep pessimism about the nation's economic future. They continued to express greater confidence in Mr. Obama's ability to manage the economy, even as Mr. McCain has aggressively sought to raise doubts about it."

This poll also showed doubts about Gov. Palin's qualifications to be president, with more than 6 in 10 respondents saying they would be concerned if McCain could not finish his term and Palin had to take over. In contrast, two-thirds of voters in both parties said Biden would be qualified to take over for Obama. In addition, 75 percent of voters surveyed said they thought McCain had picked Palin to help him win the election and not because she was qualified.