Did Russia’s invasion of Georgia have an impact?

Zogby:

Republican John McCain has taken a five-point lead over Democrat Barack Obama in the race for President, the latest Reuters/Zogby telephone survey shows.

McCain leads Obama by a 46% to 41% margin.

Can it possibly be that the media’s chosen candidate’s abilities and appeal may have been a trifle overrated? Robert Stacy McCain thinks so.

The mainstream media spent months ignoring the National Enquirer’s scoop about John Edwards’ mistress. Now they’re ignoring a potentially bigger Democratic scandal: The political incompetence of Team Obama.

Sen. Barack Obama’s brain trust of David Axelrod and David Plouffe emerged from the Democratic primary campaign with a reputation for strategic genius. That reputation is deeply entwined with the conventional wisdom among the political press that Obama is a sure thing to win in November.

Since Obama clinched the nomination in June, however, evidence has steadily accumulated that Axelrod and Plouffe — who masterminded the Illinois Democrat’s upset of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton — are out of their league when matched against a Republican in a national election.

Two months ago, on the same day a Newsweek poll showed Obama ahead by 15 points, the Democrat debuted his own personalized presidential seal. That emblem, with its Latin translation of his “Yes, We Can!” motto (“vero possumus”), quickly became an object of derision, symbolizing the overconfidence of a campaign that now finds itself locked in a neck-and-neck contest with 75 days remaining until Election Day.

Not since Frank Mankiewicz and Gary Hart steered George McGovern to the nomination in 1972 has a Democratic presidential campaign committed such laughable blunders. With few exceptions, however, the media ignore the possibility that the Axelrod-Plouffe magic simply won’t work against Republican Sen. John McCain.

And perhaps it was never magic at all.