tampabay.com

Obama passes McCain in polls

By Alex Leary, Jennifer Liberto and Steve Bousquet, Times staff writers

Published Wednesday, October 1, 2008 11:24 PM

TALLAHASSEE — Florida Republican leaders hastily convened a top secret
meeting this week to grapple with Sen. John McCain's sagging performance
in this must-win state.

Their fears were confirmed Wednesday when four new polls showed Sen.
Barack Obama leading, a reversal from just a few weeks ago when McCain
was opening up an advantage.

The polls come amid a cascade of bad news about the economy, an issue
that McCain has struggled with in recent days.

With some grass roots organizers complaining about coordination problems
with the campaign, Republican Party chairman Jim Greer gathered top
officials at the state headquarters in Tallahassee on Tuesday afternoon.
He swore the group to secrecy.

When asked about it by the St. Petersburg Times, Greer confirmed the
meeting. He largely declined to discuss what was said, but sought to
play down any strife.

Over the course of an hour, described by some as tense, Greer offered a
forceful assessment of where McCain stands in Florida and what needs to
be done to win in a battleground state that could decide the election.

"I have a responsibility to make sure things are done right, and we win
these campaigns," Greer said. "I'm sure everyone in the room understands
that I take that responsibility very seriously."

One of the concerns has been the relationship between grass roots
volunteers across the state and far fewer paid campaign staffers.
Complaints range from not getting yard signs quickly enough to knowing
who will speak at events and overall manpower coordination.

"The biggest challenge is communication," said state Rep. Ellyn
Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, who is involved in the campaign but was
not at the meeting. She said the Broward County effort is running
smoothly but that her overall impression is that state campaign
officials are somewhat limited due to national directives.

This friction and fretting goes on all the time in stressful campaigns,
and especially when one side's candidate has hit a rough patch, as
McCain has. Buzz Jacobs, the campaign's Southeast regional director, who
sat in on the meeting, denied any tension and declined comment.

McCain supporter and former Republican Party of Florida chairman Tom
Slade said he's been hearing rumblings over the past few weeks that the
campaign is not fully utilizing volunteers, though he said that was not
the case in Jacksonville.

"I get the sense that on the statewide basis, the grass roots
Republicans don't quite feel like they have a natural fit within the
McCain organization," Slade said.

The four polls released Wednesday show Obama leading, and for the first
time, he has broken the 50 percent approval mark in the biggest
battleground state.

What's more, a rolling average of Florida polls shows Obama ahead,
albeit barely, for the first time.

• Quinnipiac: Obama leads 51-43.

• InsiderAdvantage/Poll Position: Obama leads 49-46.

• CNN/Time magazine: Obama leads 51-47.

• Suffolk University showed Obama leading 46-42.

• Real Clear Politics average of all Florida polls: Obama up by 3
percentage points.