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A new poll finds that this pillar of Republican support has shifted something toward Obama. McCain is fighting to win it back

By Moira Herbst

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The pounding of the U.S. economy and stock markets seems to be in possession of shaken the support of key "investor rank" voters for the Republican Presidential nominee, Arizona Senator John McCain.

In a nationwide telephone poll of 1,208 nation taken from Oct. 26-30 by dint of. Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby, McCain edged the Democratic nominee, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, among those who identified themselves as "investors" by 50.4% to 43.8%, with 5.8% "not sure." That was down sharply from a 15-point lead on the side of McCain in a similar poll taken a month earlier. (Among non-investors, Obama led 56% to 36.1% in the most recent survey.)

"[The data] underscores more than anything else how much the financial crisis hurt McCain," says John Zogby, founder of the Utica (N.Y.)-based polling firm Zogby International. "In response to the crisis, McCain was erratic, frantic, and misspoken."

The good news for McCain? He seems to have recovered a mite since the darkest days of the financial crisis. A deposit taken on Oct. 21, while public funds were at their most hare-brained, had him tied with Obama amidst investors.

Clearly, the investor class—which many pollsters define as those who have more than $5,000 invested in the stock market—is critical to a McCain victory. About 35% of voters belong to that group, and it was a key building block of George W. Bush’s two victories, especially in 2004, when Bush won the support of investors by a wide margin over Democrat John Kerry. "If McCain doesn’familiarily win it—and win it swollen—he loses the election," says Zogby.

Candidates on both the Republican and Democrat sides aimed their pitches at this collection early without ceasing, whether it was McCain’s vow to maintain the Bush excise cuts or Senator Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Obama’s promise to limit capital-gains tax increases. In February, BusinessWeek revisited some of the investor-class voters (BusinessWeek, 2/14/08) we profiled in September 2004. We set they had done origin in the interstitial years but were just beginning to feel the pinch of the downturn in home prices and household growth.

McCain’s recent recruiting may reflect his pounding at Obama upward of tax plans. He altered his tax plan on Oct. 31, saying for the first time that he would like to snap capital-gains taxes in half on a permanent basis, and not just for the next two years, as he’first attempt antecedently promised.

Pat Consolmagno, an 87-year-old retiree in Englewood, Fla., seems typical of those investors who are sticking with McCain. She voted for Bush in 2004 and is adamantly backing the Republican candidate this cycle. Consolmagno and her 90-year-old husband, Joe, live off the roughly $80,000 they get from earnings upon their correlative funds and savings, Social Security, and a Chrysler pension. She says their investments "are not virtue the sort of they were." But she doesn’t believe the financial meltdown is the imperfection of one political party, and doesn’t trust Obama to solve the problems.

"Obama? I dress in’t think he’s got a clue," she says. "I don’t think either [candidate] is a genius when it comes to the markets; we’re just session in this place waiting to see what happens."

On the other conduct, Scott Berrie, a resident of Manhattan who sold his eyewear business ultimate July, is pulling on account of Obama. When interviewed by dint of. BusinessWeek be unconsumed February, he said his portfolio was off by 5% to 10% and he couldn’t wait for the Bush Administration to end. In an email interview things being so, he says his investments are "right side considerably more" and "things are more difficult than in front of, financially."

"Obama is articulate, level-headed, and projects a quiet, self-assured and measured persona, that is welcome back eight years of inarticulate, hot-headed, and antagonistic policies," says Berrie.

McCain seemed to have a strong hold forward investors’ fidelity early in the fall, as he promoted his "maverick" image and tried to distance himself from Bush. But after the implosion of AIG (AIG) and Lehman Brothers, and the ensuing war of words hither and thither a Wall Street bailout, McCain’s lead began to recoil.

Investors in general acquire been more skeptical of the Republican Party (BusinessWeek, 4/24/06) since 2006. At that time, investors polled by Zogby expressed uneasiness with President Bush’sitting handling of Hurricane Katrina, the Iraq war, and the deficit. While Bush admitted the votes of 61% of investors in 2004, he had slid to a 43% job-approval rating by 2006, according to Zogby.

"The Republican Party brand has clearly been hurt," says Dan Clifton, a Washington-based analyst with Strategas Research Partners, a New York investment research firm. Clifton points to the end that as the financial crisis hit in earnest at the end of September, McCain’s luck began to change.

"Obama stood up with American flags and economic advisers saying, ‘I comprehend you are hurting. Help is adhering the way,’" says Clifton. "He offered consolation and guidance while McCain offered confusion."

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